KALPH  WALDO  EMERSON,    His  Life,  Writings,  and 
Ph:  v-       1*"     GEORGE     Wit  us    COOKF.       i     vol. 


ings, 
more  i 

"N, 

vividly 
wins 
portr; 

THE 

AN:- 

Editec. 

These 
by  th.     o. 
since  p. 
ard  publicat 
guurni       •  .  >t 
to  claim  that,  the  c, 
vain,     le  and  interim 

"  The  few  speciir 
indicate  *hat   **>•>  v. 
most      '  ,  i   .*_  ^uu  c 
issued.     Carlyle  and  x^       .0. 
just  enough  unlike  to  make 
valuable."  —  N.  Y.  Times. 


' 


o. 

•ur  shine 
Register 
vn's  writ- 
valuable; 
.•>  :rf. 

-  j  with  more 

•il.arming'.     It 

ne  of  the  best 

on  Advertiser. 


CAELYLE 
:    1834  to  1872, 
vols.     i2mo. 
rty  years,  were, 
is  writers,  long 
lowers  for  editing 
book  is  sufficient 
?ris  not  too  much 
11  to  be  the  most 

published 
'  the 

ev  Deen 
-ii-ed  spirit,  were 
•:  fresh,  racy,  and 


Sold  by  Booksellers,  or  sent,  post-paid,  by 

JAMES   R.   OSGOOD  &  CO.,  BOSTON. 


EMERSON 


AT   HOME  AND   ABROAD 


BY 


MONCURE  DANIEL  CONWAY 


AUTHOR  OF  "Tim  SACRED  ANTHOLOGY,"  "THE  WANDERING  JEW, 
"THOMAS  CARLYLE,"  &c. 


BOSTON : 
JAMES    R.    OSGOOD    AND    COMPANY. 

1882. 


COPYRIGHT,  1882, 
BY  JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved. 


Electrotypedby  Printed  by 

ADDISON  C.  GETCHELL.  w>  p>  BROW/&  CQ< 


TO 

MltS.  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON, 

AND  HER  CHILDREN, 

ELLEN,  EDITH  AND  ED  WARD, 

WHO    MADE    KINDLY    AND    BEAUTIFUL 
MY   SECOND  BIRTHPLACE. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

A  VIGIL 1 

I.    MAYFLOWERINGS 19 

II.    FORERUNNERS 28 

in.    THREE  FATES 41 

IV.    A  BOSTON  BOY 47 

V.    STUDENT  AND  TEACHER 51 

VI.    APPROBATION 58 

VII.    DISAPPROBATION 67 

VIII.    A  SEA-CHANGE 74 

IX.    A  LEGEND  OF  GOOD  WOMEN 81 

X.    THE  WAIL  OF  THE  CENTURY 90 

XI.    CULTURE 96 

XII.    EAGLE  AND  DOVE 127 

XIII.  DAILY  BREAD 132 

XIV.  THE  HOME 139 

XV.    NATURE 146 

XVI.    EVOLUTION 154 

XVII.      SURSUM  CORDA 162 

XVIII.  THE  SHOT  HEARD  ROUND  THE  WORLD  .    .  167 

XIX.    SANGREAL 173 

XX.    BUILDING  TABERNACLES 184 

XXI.    A  Six  YEARS'  DAY-DREAM 194 

XXII.    LESSONS  FOR  THE  DAY 209 

XXIII.  CONCORDIA 229 

XXIV.  NATHANIEL  AND  SOPHIA  HAWTHORNE  .    .  256 
XXV.    THOREAU 279 

XXVI.    "  THE  COMING  MAN" 290 

XXVII.    THE  PYTHON 299 

XXVUI.    EMERSON  IN  ENGLAND 316 

XXIX.    THE  DIADEM  OF  DAYS 347 

XXX.  LETHE  378 


A    VIGIL. 


IT  is  the  vigil  of  Emerson.  To-morrow  (May  25, 
1882)  he  will  be  seventy-nine  years  of  age.  I  can 
not  bear  to  write  "  lie  would  be."  This  clay,  gazing  on 
a  picture  of  Emerson's  funeral,  picking  out  from  beneath 
their  grey  hairs  faces  of  some  with  whom  I  have  sat  at 
his  feet,  there  comes  home  to  me  the  secret  of  that  long 
ing  out  of  which  were  born  myths  of  men  that  never  died, 
of  Yami  and  Arthur,  of  Enoch  and  Saint  John.  The 
love  of  a  Madonna  is  in  his  own  interpretation.  "  The 
fable  of  the  Wandering  Jew  is  agreeable  to  men,  because 
they  want  more  time  and  land  in  which  to  execute  their 
thoughts.  But  a  higher  poetic  use  must  be  made  of  the 
legend.  Take  us  as  we  are  with  our  experience,  and 
transfer  us  to  a  new  planet,  and  let  us  digest  for  its 
inhabitants  what  we  could  of  the  wisdom  of  this.  After 
we  have  found  our  depth  there,  and  assimilated  what 
we  could  of  the  wisdom  of  the  new  experience,  transfer 
us  to  a  new  scene.  In  each  transfer  we  shall  have  ac 
quired,  by  seeing  them  at  a  distance,  a  new  mastery  of 
the  old  thoughts,  in  which  we  were  too  much  immersed. 
In  short,  all  our  intellectual  action  not  promises,  but 
bestows  a  feeling  of  absolute  existence.  We  are  taken 
out  of  time  and  breathe  a  purer  air." 

Such  duration  did  Emerson  devise  ;  but  one  source 


I  A  VIGIL. 

.  of  the  longing  for  immortality  lie  could  not  know  so 
fully  as  we  who  cannot  leave  his  grave.  It  needed  this 
night  to  bring  out  the  star  of  that  hope. 

"I  send  you,"  a  friend  writes,  "a  sprig  from  the 
evergreen  that  bordered  Emerson's  jjrave  as  his  coffin 
was  lowered  into  it  this  afternoon.  I  dropped  a  piece 
in  after  the  school-children  had  covered  the  coffin  with 
their  tributes,  and  kept  the  rest,  of  which  this  is  a 
part." 

Is  this  bit  of  evergreen,  already  dust,  all  the  Amen 
Nature  can  give  to  the  faith  of  its  greatest  heart  ?  Ye 
pines  and  oaks  of  Sleepy  Hollow,  awake  !  Wrestle,  as 
Herakles  for  Alcestis,  grapple  with  Death  for  your  poet 
and  lover  !  Search  with  every  rootlet  for  the  seed  of 
*  that  brain,  and  lift  it  again  to  upper  air  ! 

Alas  !  Nature  has  been  faithless.  He  trusted  her 
April  smiles  and  she  chilled  him  with  death  ;  and  now 
she  seems  to  contradict  his  living  word,  drawing  those 
he  taught  to  live  in  the  present  to  find  their  paradise  in 
the  past  he  made  so  beautiful. 

But  the  ground  laurel  on  his  grave  and  the  whisper 
ing  oaks  and  pines  waving  above  it  have  sent  abroad 
their  message  to  those  who  with  him  have  walked  that 
sacred  grove,  saying,  "  What  he  has  been  to  thee  that 
shalt  thou  tell.  Into  the  grave  of  memory  shalt  thou 
search  and  lift  by  what  art  thou  canst  every  gracious 
word  he  gave  thee,  every  thought  he  inspired,  and  all 
the  beautiful  life  thou  didst  witness,  to  its  resurrection 
and  life,  that  he  may,  through  love,  be  as  immortal  as 
a  mortal  can  be." 

Once,  as  I  walked  with  John  Stuart  Mill  alone,  he 
questioned  me  concerning  Emerson  and  his  influence  on 


A  VIGIL.  3 

American  youth.  All  I  could  tell  him  of  Emerson  was 
what  he  had  been  to  me.  When  my  story  was  told  he 
said,  "  That  is  a  thing  to  be  written  on  a  man's  tomb." 
Emerson  has  a  tomb  in  many  homes.  He  has  one  in 
mine  ;  and  the  inscription  on  it  is  here  recorded  for  my 
fellow-pilgrims  in  life. 

From  this  vigil  beside  the  grave  of  Emerson,  memory 
passes  over  the  time  of  a  generation,  and  across  long 
stretches  of  sea  and  land,  to  a  secret  nook  near  my 
Virginian  home,  to  whose  crystal  fount  and  flowers  my 
eighteenth  spring  carried  a  wintry  heart.  Near  that 
wooded  slope  the  Rappahannock  spread  silvery  in  the 
sunshine,  placid  after  its  falls  foam-white  in  the  dis 
tance,  streaming  past  its  margin  of  meadows  to  the 
peaceful  homes  and  spires  of  Fredericksburg.  Fresh 
from  college,  now  from  every  career  planned  by  parent 
or  friend  I  had  recoiled  :  some  indefinable  impediment 
barred  each  usual  path  :  the  last  shadow  settled  around 
me  when  the  law-book  was  closed  to  be  opened  no  more. 
Utterly  miserable,  self-accused  amid  sorrowful  faces, 
with  no  outlook  but  to  be  a  fettered  master  of  slaves,  I 
was  then  wont  to  shun  the  world,  with  gun  for  apology, 
and  pass  the  hours  in  this  retreat.  So  came  I  on  a 
day,  and  reclined  on  the  grass,  reading  in  a  magazine 
casually  brought.  The  laugh  and  chatter  of  negroes 
pushing  their  flat-boats  loaded  with  grain,  the  song  of 
birds,  the  sound  of  church-bells  across  the  river,  all 
smote  upon  a  heart  discordant  with  them,  at  discord 
with  itself.  Nature  had  no  meaning,  life  no  promise 
and  no  aim.  Listlessly  turning  to  the  printed  page, 
one  sentence  caught  my  eye  and  held  it ;  one  sentence 


4  A  VIGIL. 

quoted  from  Emerson,  which  changed  my  world  and 
me. 

A  sentence  only  !  I  do  not  repeat  it :  it  might  not 
bear  to  others  what  it  bore  to  me  :  its  searching  subtle 
revelation  defies  any  analysis  I  can  make  of  its  words. 
All  I  know  is  that  it  was  the  touch  of  flame  I  needed. 
That  day  my  gun  was  laid  aside  to  be  resumed  no 
more.  But  how  crude  I  was  !  The  nearest  mould  into 
which  my  new  life  could  run  was  a  Methodist  itiner 
ancy.  A  human  aim  had  arisen ;  souls  were  to  be 
saved  ;  and  in  that  work  must  begin  my  small  "  Wan- 
derjahre."  My  horse  was  got  ready  :  my  bible,  filled 
with  maternal  inscriptions  holy  as  its  texts,  was  taken 
for  compass  in  my  wanderings  ;  I  only  longed  to  add 
some  book  by  Emerson.  But  the  Index  Expurga- 
torius  of  slavery  had  excluded  Northern  books  so  long 
and  so  well,  that  the  bookseller  in  Fredericksburg 
offered  me  "Emerson's  Arithmetic,"  and  denied  the 
existence  of  any  other  Emerson.  For  a  long  time  I 
had  only  my  one  sentence  ;  but  how  large  it  grew  ! 

My  cousin  and  literary  friend,  John  Moncure  Daniel, 
was  editor  of  the  "Richmond  Examiner,"  in  which 
paper  I  was  delighted  by  finding  one  day  a  long  extract 
from  one  of  Emerson's  Essays.  About  that  time 
Edgar  A.  Poe  was  lecturing  at  Richmond  on  Poetry, 
and  my  cousin  supplemented  his  selections  by  printing 
Emerson's  "  Humble  Bee."  Poe  had  conceived  a  dis 
like  of  Emerson,  and  the  severest  criticism  upon  him 
self  are  his  paragraphs  about  the  man  he  most  needed. 
I  remember  that  restless  face  and  demon-driven  figure, 
and  have  felt  that  if  he  could  only  have  appreciated 


A  VIGIL.  5 

the  true  teacher  of  his  time,  the  career  of  that  wan 
derer  might  have  been  less  tragical. 

Soon  after  leaving  home  for  the  charge  assigned  me 
by  the  Baltimore  Methodist  Conference,  I  obtained  the 
first  series  of  Emerson's  Essays,  and  presently  his 
other  works.  They  were  read,  between  my  nineteenth 
and  twentieth  birthdays,  on  horseback,  while  travelling 
the  roads  and  woods  of  a  "  circuit"  in  Maryland.  I 
preached  seven  times  in  the  week,  and  in  some  cases 
had  to  ride  more  than  twenty  miles  to  an  appointment. 
But  with  Emerson  for  companion,  my  horse,  walking 
the  distance  with  reins  on  neck,  arrived  but  too  soon. 

Presently  the  shadow  cast  by  this  light  began  to 
travel  beside  me.  Strange  that  I  should  have  been  so 
long  —  nearly  a  year  —  unconscious  of  the  abyss  be 
tween  what  I  was  thinking  and  what  I  was  doing  !  My 
congregations  grew  ominously  still ;  elders  shook  their 
heads,  and  were  on  more  anxious  seats  than  the 
sinners  ;  so  I  grew  perplexed.  One  Sunday  a  pious 
lady  awaited  my  descent  from  the  pulpit  and  said, 
''Brother,  you  seemed  to  be  preaching  to  us  from 
another  world."  Then  I  preached  no  more. 

Having  resigned  my  profession,  I  returned  for  a 
brief  time  to  Virginia :  there  I  was  lonely,  but  still 
happy,  though  not  able  to  see  my  way  very  far.  At 
this  time  I  was  thrilled  by  learning  that  a  youth  from 
the  North  —  no  doubt  seeking  health  in  our  warmer 
climate  —  had  died  in  our  neighbourhood,  and  with  his 
last  words  begged  that  his  love  should  be  conveyed  to 
Emerson,  "who,"  he  said,  "has  done  more  for  me 
than  any  other  on  earth."  This  message  I  undertook 
to  forward,  and  did,  but  not  at  once,  for  I  hoped  to 


6  A  VIGIL. 

find  out  more  about  this  wayfarer  who  had  died  so  near 
a  comrade  without  knowing  it. 

Of  course  I  had  written  to  Emerson.  I  was  nine 
teen,  alone  with  my  new  thoughts,  and  was  seized 
with  a  longing  to  realise  my  master's  existence.  So  I 
wrote  my  brief  love-letter,  and  posted  it  with  a  feeling 
that  it  was  addressed  to  some  impersonal  spirit,  dwell 
ing  in  a  spiritual  realm  harmoniously  called  Concord, 
whom  it  would  never  reach.  But  —  joy!  —  speedily 
came  the  response,  read  in  sweet  secrecy  then,  and 
how  often  since  ! 

"  CONCORD,  Mass.,  13th  November,  1851. 

"  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  fear  you  will  not  be  able,  except  at 
some  chance  auction,  to  obtain  any  set  of  the  '  Dial.' 
In  fact,  smaller  editions  were  printed  of  the  later  and 
latest  numbers,  which  increases  the  difficulty. 

"  I  am  interested  by  your  kind  interest  in  my  writ 
ings,  but  you  have  not  let  me  sufficiently  into  your 
own  habit  of  thought,  to  enable  me  to  speak  to  it  with 
much  precision.  But  I  believe  what  interests  both  you 
and  me  most  of  all  things,  and  whether  we  know  it  or 
not,  is  the  morals  of  intellect ;  in  other  words,  that  no 
man  is  worth  his  room  in  the  world  who  is  not  com 
manded  by  a  legitimate  object  of  thought.  The  earth 
is  full  of  frivolous  people,  who  are  bending  their  whole 
force  and  the  force  of  nations  on  trifles,  and  these  are 
baptized  with  every  grand  and  holy  name,  remaining, 
of  course,  totally  inadequate  to  occupy  any  mind ; 
and  so  sceptics  are  made.  A  true  soul  will  disdain  to 
be  moved  except  by  what  natively  commands  it,  though 
it  should  go  sad  and  solitary  in  search  of  its  master  a 


A  VIGIL.  * 

thousand  years.  The  few  superior  persons  in  each 
community  are  so  by  their  steadiness  to  reality  and 
their  neglect  of  appearances.  This  is  the  euphrasy 
and  rue  that  purge  the  intellect  and  ensure  insight. 
Its  full  rewards  are  slow  but  sure  ;  and  yet  I  think  it 
has  its  reward  on  the  instant,  inasmuch  as  simplicity 
and  grandeur  are  always  better  than  dapperness.  But 
I  will  not  spin  out  these  saws  farther,  but  hasten  to 
thank  you  for  your  frank  and  friendly  letter,  and  to 
wish  you  the  best  deliverance  in  that  contest  to  which 
every  soul  must  go  alone.  —  Yours,  in  all  good  hope, 

"  R.  W.  EMEKSON." 

Here  I  had  my  marching  orders,  and  gradually  com 
prehended  them.  Struggles  were  necessary  to  cut  my 
self  loose  from  Southern  politics  and  from  orthodoxy, 
but  they  became  light  when  I  whispered  to  myself, 
"  Yours,  in  all  good  hope."  My  heart  learned  this 
note,  and  sang  it  to  me  in  many  a  night  of  loneliness 
and  poverty. 

At  last  the  day  came  when  I  stood  at  the  door  of 
Emerson.  I  had  entered  the  Divinity  College  at  Cam 
bridge,  and  carried  a  letter  from  one  of  his  friends  ; 
but  I  was  nervous,  and  it  was  some  relief  to  hear  he 
was  not  at  home.  His  little  daughter  and  son,  how 
ever,  brought  me  an  invitation  from  Mrs.  Emerson  to 
return  soon,  and  meantime  they  took  me  on  a  beautiful 
walk,  —  a  walk  amid  apple  trees,  where  we  sat  and 
told  tales  in  a  lovely  Lost  Bower. 

I  was  taken  to  Emerson  by  his  children  and  gave 
him  my  note  of  introduction.  He  remembered,  and 
said,  "Surely  you  are  my  Virginian  correspondent/' 


A  VIGIL. 

With  that  he  extended  his  hand  and  welcomed  me  with 
a  smile  —  his  smile,  not  to  be  lightly  lost  by  one  it  has 
wanned.  For  me,  who  never  before  had  seen  a  great 
man,  who  yet  in  my  minority  was  cut  off  from  every 
relative  and  had  alienated  every  early  friend,  this  wel 
coming  word  and  smile  was  the  break  of  a  new  day. 
I  could  not  answer.  Many  years  after  I  read  that  one 
in  paradise  was  asked  how  he  got  there  and  replied, 
"  One  day  as  Buddha  passed  by  he  smiled  upon  me." 

Twenty-eight  years  later,  on  that  spot  where  I  first 
met  Emerson  I  parted  from  him  to  see  him  no  more. 
It  was  with  the  old  grasp  of  hand,  and  with  that  smile 
on  his  face  to  win  which  would  at  any  time  have  meant 
to  me  success.  It  is  before  me  now,  and  shall  not  be 
changed  to  a  frown  by  any  sentence  in  this  little  book. 

It  is  the  birthday  of  Emerson.  This  twenty-fifth  of 
May  he  is  seventy-nine  years  of  age.  Or  must  I  con 
cede  that  he  lives  no  more !  Here  are  letters  before 
me ;  reports  of  words  spoken  at  his  house,  in  church, 
at  the  grave.  Here  is  a  note  written  on  the  day  before 
his  funeral.  "  The  main  street  as  well  as  that  on  which 
he  lived  are  to  be  draped  with  black,  and  a  great  crowd 
of  people  is  expected  to-morrow.  The  Fitchburg  rail 
road  will  run  special  trains,  contrary  to  the  law  against 
Sunday  travelling.  We  are  doing  our  best  to  get  what 
may  pass  for  wild  flowers,  namely,  maple  and  willow 
blossoms,  to  mingle  with  the  pine  and  hemlock  around 
the  pulpit."  Another  writes  on  the  funeral  day  :  "  The 
assembly  of  neighbours  and  friends  thronged  the  church, 
and  the  village,  for  the  church  could  hold  but  part ;  the 
ten  carloads  of  people  that  went  up  from  Boston  and 


A  VIGIL.  9 

elsewhere  would  alone  have  filled  it."  In  that  home 
where  he  had  lived  forty-six  years,  his  family  gathered 
around  him,  and  with  them  the  venerable  Dr.  Furness, 
Emerson's  friend  in  his  college  days,  still  dearer  friend 
by  his  lifelong  faithfulness  to  every  human  cause.  In 
the  church  founded  by  his  fathers,  freed  from  their 
creed  by  his  larger  thought,  the  Sage  lay  in  state, 
white-robed,  while  around  him  fell  the  first  tears  he 
had  ever  caused  to  friend  or  neighbour.  Above  was  a 
canopy  of  pine  boughs.  His  youth  sang  of  the  em 
bowered  home  he  was  to  find  — 

u  beneath  the  pines, 
Where  the  evening  star  so  holy  shines." 

When  the  evening  star  was  near  to  its  setting,  for  a 
moment  his  mind  wandered,  and  he  asked  to  be  taken 
home.  Then  he  beheld  his  grandchildren,  blessed  them 
with  his  smile,  and  his  words  —  "  Good  boy  !  "  "  Good 
little  girl ! " 

Now  again,  carried  from  his  own  to  the  village  home, 
he  was  stretched  beneath  the  pines,  and  life's  evening 
star  rose  before  those  tearful  eyes  around  him  to  be  a 
morning  star.  On  front  of  the  pulpit  was  a  harp  made 
of  golden  flowers.  On  the  high  wall  was  an  open  book, 
formed  of  pinks,  pansies,  and  white  roses  ;  on  its  page, 
written  in  flowers,  the  word  u  Finis."  His  aged  friend, 
Bronson  Alcott,  read  touching  lines.  Valiant,  large- 
hearted  Freeman  Clarke  —  he  who  surrendered  his 
pulpit  rather  than  exclude  Theodore  Parker  from  it  — 
said,  "Our  souls  have  been  fed  by  him,  and  although 
he  has  left  his  dust  behind,  his  life  does  not  die  ;  he 
himself  was  the  best  argument  for  immortality."  Then 


10  A  VIGIL. 

the  grey  hairs  of  Judge  Hoar  were  bent  over  the  face 
of  his  beloved  friend,  companion  of  all  his  life,  and  his 
voice,  which  had  so  often  commanded  a  nation's  atten 
tion,  now  was  broken  with  grief.  "  That  lofty  brow, 
the  home  of  all  wise  thoughts  and  noble  aspirations ; 
those  lips  of  eloquent  music ;  that  great  soul,  which 
trusted  in  God,  and  never  let  go  its  hope  of  immor 
tality  ;  that  great  heart,  to  which  everything  was  wel 
come  that  belonged  to  man;  that  hospitable  nature, 
loving  and  tender  and  generous,  having  no  repulsion 
or  scorn  for  anything  but  meanness  and  baseness,  — 
oh !  friend,  brother,  father,  lover,  teacher,  inspirer, 
guide,  is  there  no  more  we  can  do  now  than  to  give 
thee  our  hail  and  farewell  ?  " 

Nothing  more  !  Through  the  village  streets,  which 
his  presence  had  made  beautiful  as  pathways  in  Beulah 
for  the  pilgrims  with  whom  he  walked,  they  now  bore 
his  flower-laden  body  into  the  grove  of  primeval  trees, 
and  upward  to  the  higher  ground  where  lay  the  bride 
so  early  lost  —  "Ellen  in  the  South"  —  and  little 
Waldo,  enshrined  in  his  Threnody,  and  Thoreau,  and 
Hawthorne ;  thither  they  bore  him.  And  there  he 
was  laid. 

The  next  day  was  May  Day.  That  blithe  day  which 
his  Muse  had  celebrated  dawned  upon  his  grave. 
What  ear  was  left  to  hear  the  pine  wind-harps  of 
Sleepy  Hollow  as  he  heard  them  ?  The  ear  made  fine 
by  grief.  In  many  a  solitude  was  heard  that  day 
thomcs  caught  from  his  "  May  Day,"  from  its  JEolian 
harp,  by  the  boughs  waving  over  Emerson's  grave  :  — 

'•  One  musician  is  sure, 
His  wisdom  will  not  fail; 


A  VIGIL.  11 

He  has  not  tasted  wine  impure, 
Nor  bent  to  passion  frail. 
Age  cannot  cloud  his  memory, 
Nor  grief  untune  his  voice, 
Ranging  down  the  ruled  scale 
From  tone  of  joy  to  inward  wail." 

But  here  a  heart-string  breaks.  I  remember  well  the 
days  when  Emerson  began  writing  "May  Day."  He 
told  me  that  a  single  breath  of  spring  fragrance  coming 
into  his  open  window  and  blending  with  strains  of  his 
^Eolian  harp  had  revived  in  him  memories  and  reani 
mated  thoughts  that  had  perished  under  turmoil  of  the 
times.  His  voice  of  that  happy  day  is  audible  in  these 
lines :  — 

"  Not  long  ago,  at  eventide, 
It  seemed  so  listening,  at  my  side 
A  window  rose,  and,  to  say  sooth, 
I  looked  forth  on  the  fields  of  youth : 
I  saw  fair  boys  bestriding  steeds, 
I  knew  their  forms  in  fancy  weeds, 
Long,  long  concealed  by  sundering  fates, 
Mates  of  my  youth,  —  yet  not  my  mates, 
Stronger  and  bolder  far  than  I. 
With  grace,  with  genius,  well  attired, 
And  then  as  now  from  far  admired. 
Followed  with  love 
They  knew  not  of, 
With  passion  cold  and  shy. 
O  joff.  for  what  recoveries  rare ! 
Renewed,  I  breathe  Elysian  air, 
See  youth's  glad  mates  in  earliest  bloom,  — 
Break  not  my  dream,  obtrusive  tomb  ! 
Or  teach  thou,  Spring !  the  grand  recoil 
Of  life  resurgent  from  the  soil 
Wherein  was  dropped  the  mortal  spoil." 


12  A  VIGIL. 

Never  were  truer  emblems  than  those  flowers  that 
formed  the  harp  and  the  book  beside  the  dead  body  of 
Emerson.  Once,  when  he  read  from  Swedenborg  that 
he  had  observed  in  heaven  that  whenever  an  angel 
uttered  a  truth  a  twig  held  in  his  hand  blossomed,  it 
occurred  to  me  that  I  had  observed  the  same  thing  in 
Concord. 

The  grove  where  Emerson  lies  will  spread  far  beyond 
Concord.  In  the  "Cincinnati  Commercial,"  printed 
the  day  after  his  death,  I  found  this  paragraph  :  "It 
is  a  coincidence  that  on  the  day  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson 
died  at  his  home  in  Concord,  a  large  number  of  the 
public-school  children  of  Cincinnati,  under  the  leader 
ship  of  their  superintendent,  and  in  observance  of  a 
forestry  holiday,  were  planting  an  Author's  Grove,  one 
of  the  most  prominent  objects  of  which  is  a  group 
named  in  honour  of  Emerson.  The  Emerson  trees  are 
six  in  number,  an  elm,  two  oaks,  and  four  rock-maples. 
The  boys  of  Hughes'  High  School  formed  an  inner 
circle  to  finish  their  setting,  and  the  girls  of  the  same 
school  an  outer  circle.  Thus  arranged,  they  sang 
national  songs  and  gave  appropriate  recitations.  As 
they  performed  this  worthy  and  poetic  task,  the  world- 
renowned  philosopher  whose  name  the  group  will  bear 
lay  dying,  and  as  evening  came  on  he  passed  away. 
Eden  Park  is  likely  to  contain  no  more  noted  trees 
than  those  planted  for  Emerson  on  the  day  he  died." 

No  noble  thing  in  nature  that  grows,  and  is  strong 
and  beautiful,  but  may  be  fit  emblem  of  Emerson,  and 
find  its  poetic  interpretation  in  some  page  of  his. 


A  VIGIL.  13 

"VVheri  those  Emerson  maples  in  Eden  Park  are  glowing 
like  embers,  his  thought  will  burn  brighter  :  — 

"  The  scarlet  maple-keys  betray 
What  potent  blood  hath  modest  May ; 
What  fiery  force  the  earth  renews, 
The  wealth  of  forms,  the  flush  of  hues ; 
Joy  shed  in  rosy  waves  abroad 
Flows  from  the  heart  of  Love,  the  Lord." 

And  under  shade  of  the  Emerson  oaks,  the  children 
who  planted  them  may  teach  their  finest  symbolism  in 
the  words  which  he  spoke  thirty-nine  years  ago  con 
cerning  the  conserving  and  the  reforming  spirit:  — 
4 'Nature  does  not  give  the  crown  of  its  approbation, 
beauty,  to  any  action,  or  emblem,  or  actor,  but  one 
which  combines  both  these  elements  ;  not  to  the  rock 
which  resists  the  wave  from  age  to  age,  nor  to  the  wave 
which  lashes  incessantly  the  rock ;  but  the  superior 
beauty  is  with  the  oak,  which  stands  with  its  hundred 
arms  against  the  storms  of  a  century,  and  grows  every 
year  like  a  sapling." 

Emerson  personally  planted  the  spiritual  germs  of 
those  trees  set  in  Eden  Park  by  the  children  of  Cin 
cinnati.  Twenty-three  years  ago  he  visited  us  there, 
and  gave  a  course  of  lectures  from  my  pulpit.  Evening 
after  evening  the  church  was  filled  with  the  families 
which  gave  that  city,  the  "  Queen  of  the  West,"  the 
intellectual  character  it  has  preserved.  There  the  best 
chapters  in  "The  Conduct  of  Life"  were  given,  and 
many  a  child  there  is  this  day  more  fortunate  than 
any  wealth  can  ever  make  him,  because  of  that  visit 
from  the  sower  of  new  souls.  Soon  afterwards  I 
started  there  a  monthly  magazine,  the  "Dial."'  This 


14  A  VIGIL. 

effort  to  light  our  Western  torch  at  the  finest  flame  of  our 
East,  —  announced  in  reproducing  the  title  of  the  old 
transcendental  Quarterly, — received  sympathy  from 
Emerson,  who  contributed  to  it  his  essay  on  "  Domestic 
Life,"  "  Quatrains,"  and  "The  Sacred  Dance."  All 
these  have  since  appeared  in  his  works,  the  last-named 
in  "  May  Day,"  as  the  "  Song  of  Seid  Nimetollah  of 
Kuhistan."  The  Civil  War  put  an  end  to  that  little 
venture  of  mine,  the  "Dial,"  for  we  all  had  sterner 
work  to  do ;  but  there  are  many  homes  in  Cincinnati 
where  it  carried  a  regenerating  spirit  in  that  matchless 
essay  on  "  Domestic  Life." 

What  Emerson  became  to  these  distant  homes  in 
which  he  was  read,  and  to  the  hearts  that  cherished  his 
every  thought,  could  never  be  comprehended  by  him 
self.  Here  is  an  incident  which  might  have  given 
Carlyle'a  paragraph  on  the  unconsciousness  of  genius. 
I  have  a  letter  from  Emerson,  which  came  with  the 
manuscript  of  "  Domestic  Life,"  in  which  he  speaks 
of  another  essay  he  had  thought  of  sending,  and 
says  :  —  "  Then  I  kept  it  to  put  into  what  will  not  ad 
mit  anything  peaceably,  my  'Religion'  chapter,  which 
has  a  very  tender  stomach,  on  which  nothing  will  lie. 
They  say  the  ostrich  hatches  her  egg  by  standing  off, 
and  looking  at  it,  and  that  is  my  present  secret  of 
authorship.  I  long  ago  rolled  up  and  addressed  to  you 
an  ancient  MS.  lecture  called  *  Domestic  Life,'  and 
long  ago,  you  may  be  sure,  familiar  to  Lyceums,  but 
never  printed,  except  in  newspaper  reports.  But  I 
feared  }TOU  would  feel  bound  to  print  it,  though  I 
should  have  justified  you  if  you  had  not  printed  a 


A  VIGIL.  15 

page."  Reading  these  last  words,  remembering  the 
joy  with  which  I  sent  forth  the  "Dial"  (October, 
1860)  with  that  scripture  of  the  sun,  and  the  many 
grateful  responses  that  carne,  I  have  reflected  on  the 
number  of  Beauties  that  must  be  sleeping  among 
Emerson's  manuscripts,  hedged  by  the  thorns  of  his 
self-criticism. 

It  was  to  a  home  in  Cincinnati,  which  he  had  helped 
to  make  happy,  that  Emerson  wrote  the  following 
letter :  — 

"  CONCORD,  Gth  October,  1861. 

"  MY   DEAR    SlR    AND    MY   DEAR   LADY, 1  have  yOUI 

note,  and  give  you  joy  of  the  happy  event  you  announce 
to  me  in  the  birth  of  your  son.  Who  is  rich  or  happy 
but  the  parent  of  a  son?  Life  is  all  preface  until  we 
have  children  ;  then  it  is  deep  and  solid.  You  would 
think  me  a  child  again  if  I  should  tell  you  how  much 
joy  I  have  owed,  and  daily  owe,  to  my  children,  and 
you  have  already  known  the  early  chapters  of  this 
experience  in  your  own  house.  My  best  thanks  are 
due  to  you  both  for  the  great  good-will  you  shew  me 
in  thinking  of  my  name  for  the  boy.  If  there  is  room 
for  choice  still,  I  hesitate  a  good  deal  at  allowing  a 
rusty  old  name,  eaten  with  Heaven  knows  how  much 
time  and  fate,  to  be  flung  hazardously  on  this  new 
adventurer  in  his  snow-white  robes.  I  have  never 
encountered  such  a  risk  out  of  my  own  house,  and,  for 
the  boy's  sake,  if  there  be  time,  must  dissuade.  But 
I  shall  watch  the  career  of  this  young  American  with 
special  interest,  born  as  he  is  under  stars  and  omens 
so  extraordinary,  and  opening  the  gates  of  a  new  and 


16  A  VIGIL. 

fairer  age.     With  all  hopes  and  all  thanks,  and  with 
affectionate  sympathies  from  my  wife. 

"Yours  ever,         R.  W.  EMERSON." 

"  My  wife  declares  that  name  or  no  name  her  spoon 
shall  go." 

Alas  !  this  note  and  the  silver  cup  that  came  with  it, 
are  now  memorials  of  a  little  grave  in  England.  Could 
we  only  have  found  something  not  only  beloved  and 
beautiful,  like  the  child,  but  imperishable,  to  name  after 
Emerson ! 

I  will  follow  the  children  of  the  Queen  of  the  West, 
who  gave  his  name  to  their  group  of  trees  in  Eden 
Park.  In  my  garden  grows  a  sapling  of  the  Glaston- 
bury  Thorn.  It  was  sent  me  by  a  friend  years  ago, 
that  its  famous  habit  of  flowering  at  Christmas  might 
be  proved  beyond  all  doubts.  Sure  enough,  at  the  close 
of  the  last  year  this  thorn  clothed  itself  with  green 
leaves,  and  the  blossoms  peeped  through  their  sheath. 
Legend  associated  it  with  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  who 
wandered  from  the  East  eighteen  centuries  ago,  whose 
staff  blossomed  amid  the  snow  on  the  vigil  of  Christ, 
and  so  marked  the  site  for  Glastonbury  Abbey.  But 
this  descendant  of  it  shall  connect  the  deep  sense  of 
its  mythology, — the  budding  rod  of  Aaron,  the  staff  of 
silent  Christopher,  which  converted  men  by  its  fruits, 
the  thorn  that  canopied  Patrick  with  blossoms,  —  with 
his  name.  Some  day  the  wayfarers,  seeing  it  flourish 
ing  in  winter  amid  other  trees  denuded  and  black, 
shall  say,  "Its  legend  is  from  the  West.  It  was 


A  VIGIL.  17 

planted  there  and  named  by  one  who,  amid  his  winter 
of  loneliness  and  doubt,  was  surprised  by  a  spring 
whose  leaf  never  withered,  whose  blossoms  mingled 
with  every  snow ;  a  great  teacher  brought  him  this 
fortune  and  happiness,  and  wherever  he  wandered  in 
the  world  he  sought  to  plant  some  germ  of  his  teacher's 
wisdom,  that  hearts  might  suffer  no  blight  in  life's 
winter,  that  faith  might  flourish  amid  decay  of  creeds, 
and  love  know  the  secret  of  perpetual  youth.  This 
is  the  Emerson  tree  !  " 


EMERSON"  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


T. 


MAYFLOWEKINGS. 

THERE  is  an  incident  in  the  life  of  the  Plymouth  Pil 
grims  too  trifling  to  be  included  in  the  regular  an 
nals  of  those  times.  One  morning  Captain  Miles  Stan- 
dish,  and  John  Alden,  and  Priscilla,  whose  relations  to 
each  other  are  well  known  to  readers  of  Longfellow,  were 
walking  through  a  field  together.  A  light  snow  lay  on 
the  ground,  but  Priscilla's  eye  perceived  a  little  flower 
peeping  through  it.  "Stay,  Captain  Standish,"  she 
said,  but  was  too  late  to  prevent  his  heavy  boot  from 
treading  on  it.  John  Alden  made  haste  to  pick  the 
flower,  which  the  maiden  tenderly  nursed.  Standish 
cast  a  vexed  glance  at  Alden  and  said,  "Puritan 
soldiers  have  something  else  to  look  after  besides 
flowers."  "Nay,"  rejoined  Priscilla,  "but  we  need 
not  trample  down  any  beautiful  gift  of  God's  earth. 
Look  at  it,  Captain ;  it  is  fragrant  as  well  as  pretty ; 
and  is  it  not  a  sturdy  little  soldier  too,  battling  with 
the  snow?  "  The  Captain  strode  on  and  was  presently 
leading  another  attack  on  the  Indians  ;  but  Priscilla 
and  John  wandered  about  the  fields  and  gathered  many 
of  these  blossoms,  and  found  in  them  a  still  small  voice 


20  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

of  courage  amid  the  bleakness  of  that  wintry  coast. 
Such  courage  had  led  the  pilgrims  across  the  sea  in  the 
season  of  snowstorms  ;  so  Priscilla  named  the  blossom 
"Mayflower,"  after  the  ship  on  which  they  had  voy 
aged,  and  wore  a  spray  of  them  at  her  breast  when  she 
was  married  to  John  Alden. 

Of  this  marriage  came  at  last  the  sweet  singer  Long 
fellow,  who  gathered  in  his  song  so  many  blooms 
which  rough  captains  of  the  world  had  trampled  on. 
But  before  the  poet,  who  in  Washington's  headquarters 
wrote  the  lyrics  of  peace  and  hymns  of  humanity,  could 
come, — the  "sweet  and  beautiful  soul,"  as  Emerson 
described  him,  standing  at  his  grave,  in  whose  poetry 
the  Puritan  and  the  Indian  first  found  harmony,  — 
many  gentle  maidens  and  lovers,  from  generation  to 
generation,  must  gather  spiritual  Mayflowers  amid  Cal- 
vinistic  snows.  Cromwell  once  engaged  passage  for 
New  England,  but  never  sailed ;  yet,  in  a  sense,  his 
tread  was  there  for  many  a  day,  heavy  on  the  May 
flowers  ;  while  Milton  was  there,  too,  gathering  them 
up  tenderly  as  John  Alden. 

The  modern  pilgrim  to  Plymouth  finds  a  beautiful 
town  beside  the  sea  where  floated  that  first  ship,  so 
freighted  with  human  destinies.  The  undulating  hills 
and  the  cliffs,  girt  about  with  their  autumnal  coat  of 
many  colours,  make  fit  scenery  for  the  historic  vision. 
"But  Plymouth  Rock,  —  I  must  first  see  that."  A 
friend  guides  me  toward  the  water  to  a  kind  of  wharf, 
and  then  begins  scraping  the  ground.  Thinking  he 
must  have  dropped  something,  I  ask,  "  What  are  you 
looking  for?"  "I  am  trying  to  show  you  Plymouth 
Rock,"  he  remarks.  Angels  and  ministers  of  grace 


M  A  YFLO  WEEING  S.  21 

defend  us  !  —  clearing  away  the  mud  to  show  Plymouth 
Rock  !  Presently  I  do  see  something  like  a  flagstone  ; 
but  looking  up,  the  breaking  waves  dashing  high,  seen 
by  the  mind's  eye  from  childhood,  have  sunk  to  a  placid 
pond,  and  the  firm  and  rock-bound  shore  on  which 
they  dashed  has  shrunk  to  a  molehill.  Dr.  Channing 
told  Mrs.  Hemans  of  the  thousand  voices  he  had  heard 
singing  on  Forefathers'  Day  her  famous  hymn  about 
the  breaking  waves  and  rock-bound  shore,  and  she 
wept ;  but  she  might  have  smiled  through  her  tears 
could  she  have  seen  that  gentle  beach,  no  rock  visible, 
where  the  pilgrims  really  landed.  However,  a  stone 
weighing  perhaps  a  ton  was  removed  from  the  spot  to 
the  museum,  and  a  graceful  monument  now  stands  in 
its  place. 

The  granite  heart  of  the  colony  was  the  true  Ply 
mouth  Rock.  "  These  poor  men,"  says  Carlyle, 
"driven  out  of  their  own  country,  and  not  able  to 
live  in  Holland,  determined  on  settling  in  the  New 
World.  Black,  untamed  forests  are  there,  and  wild 
savage  creatures,  but  not  so  cruel  as  a  Star-Chamber 
hangman.  They  clubbed  their  means  together,  hired 
a  ship  —  the  little  ship  '  Mayflower '  —  and  made  ready 
to  sail.  Hah  !  these  men,  I  think,  had  a  work.  The 
weak  thing,  weaker  than  a  child,  becomes  a  strong 
thing  if  it  be  a  true  thing.  Puritanism  was  only  des 
picable,  laughable  then ;  but  nobody  can  manage  to 
laugh  at  it  now.  It  is  one  of  the  strongest  things 
under  the  sun  at  present." 

Little  by  little  Plymouth  Rock  crumbled  away ;  the 
last  fragment  survived  visibly  only  at  the  museum. 
And  meanwhile  the  sweet  Mayflowers  bloomed  on. 


22  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

The  hard  dogmas  grew  to  be  stems  of  fragrant  virtues. 
When  I  stood  in  the  first  church  of  Plymouth,  founded 
by  the  Pilgrims  on  that  old  Puritan  rock,  these  little 
flowers  were  sacramental  symbols  for  worshippers  who 
reverenced  the  teachings  of  Chanuing,  Parker,  and 
Emerson.  Contemporary  Priscillas  and  Aldens  had 
taken  me  to  gather  them.  Lilies  of  the  valley  cannot 
surpass  this  little  trailing  arbutus  (Epigea  repens), 
with  its  hyacinthine  shape  and  delicate  pink-faint  flush. 
I  have  seen  Theodore  Parker,  in  the  course  of  a  dis 
course,  lift  up  a  bunch  of  these,  which  some  gatherer 
had  affectionately  laid  on  his  pulpit-desk,  and  he  gave 
them  fresh  beauty  and  fragrance  in  using  them  as 
symbols  of  certain  sweet  traits  of  New  England  char 
acter  that  grew  amid  the  frost  of  Calvinism,  uncon 
scious  that  he  himself  was  an  illustration  of  his  thought. 
Emerson,  too,  in  early  life,  addressing  the  people  of 
Concord  concerning  their  forefathers,  said,  "  The  little 
flower  which  at  this  season  stirs  our  wood  and  road 
sides  with  its  profuse  blossoms  might  attract  even  eyes 
as  stern  as  theirs  with  its  humble  beauty." 

But  a  second  and  more  important  pilgrimage  lay  be 
tween  Plymouth  Rock  and  Theodore  Parker  at  Lexing 
ton,  nursing  the  delicate  flowers  of  his  heart  amid  toil 
and  orthodoxy,  and  ere  Emerson  could  be  reached 
farther  on,  the  flower  of  New  England  history. 

This  year,  1882,  on  the  12th  July,  Benjamin  Bulke- 
ley  fresh  from  Divinity  College,  Harvard  University, 
was  settled  as  minister  of  Concord  church.  Concord 
and  its  church  were  both  founded  by  his  ancestor  and 
Emerson's  ancestor,  the  Rev.  Peter  Bulkeley,  an  Ox 
onian  of  noble  family,  Rector  of  Odell,  Bedfordshire, 


MAYFLOWEIUNGS.  23 

who  had  been  silenced  by  Archbishop  Laud.  In  1635 
Peter  Bulkeley,  and  some  families  with  him,  emigrated 
and  settled  themselves  at  Musketaquid,  which  they 
named  Concord.  John  Eliot,  the  English  "  apostle  to 
the  Indians,"  had  made  the  red  faces  friendly.  Bulke 
ley  had  brought  with  him  the  large  sum  of  six  thousand 
pounds,  which  he  devoted  to  the  welfare  of  those  who 
accompanied  him.  He  gave  a  good  library  to  Harvard 
College.  In  that  same  year,  1635,  also  emigrated 
Thomas  Emerson,  of  an  honourable  family  in  Durham, 
whose  son  married  one  of  the  Bulkeley  family  at  Con 
cord. 

The  marching  of  Peter  Bulkeley  and  his  friends  to 
the  place  where  their  descendants  still  reside  was 
through  and  into  a  wilderness.  It  is  described  by  one 
of  their  number  as  "  a  toyle  of  some  dayes."  "  This 
poore  people,  populate  this  howling  desert,  marching 
manfully  on,  the  Lord  assisting,  through  the  greatest 
difficulties,  and  greater  labours  than  any  with  such 
weak  means  have  done."  There  was  "  hard  work  for 
many  an  honest  gentleman."  In  1835  Emerson  was 
invited  to  deliver  an  address  on  the  occasion  of  the 
200th  anniversary  of  the  settlement  of  Concord,  and 
in  the  course  of  it  he  gave  a  touching  picture  of  the 
little  band  of  founders  :  — 

"  They  proceeded  to  build,  under  the  shelter  of  the 
hill  that  extends  for  a  mile  along  the  north  side  of 
the  Boston  road,  their  first  dwellings.  The  labours  of 
a  new  plantation  were  repaid  by  its  excitements.  I  seem 
to  see  them  with  their  pious  pastor  addressing  them 
selves  to  the  work  of  clearing  the  land.  Natives  of 
another  hemisphere,  they  beheld  with  curiosity  all  the 


24  EMERSON  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 

pleasing  features  of  the  American  forest.  The  land 
scape  before  them  was  fair,  if  it  was  strange  and  rude. 
The  little  flower,  which  at  this  season  stirs  our  woods 
and  roadsides  with  its  profuse  blossoms,  might  attract 
even  eyes  as  stern  as  theirs  with  its  humble  beauty. 
The  useful  pine  lifted  its  cone  into  the  frosty  air.  The 
maple,  which  is  already  making  the  forest  gay  with  its 
autumn  hues,  reddened  over  those  houseless  men. 
The  majestic  summits  of  Wachusett  and  Monadnoc, 
towering  in  the  horizon,  invited  the  steps  of  adventure 
westward. 

' '  As  the  season  grew  later  they  felt  its  inconve 
niences.  Many  were  forced  to  go  barefoot  and  bareleg, 
and  some  in  time  of  frost  and  snow,  yet  '  were  they 
more  healthy  than  now  they  are.'  The  land  was  low 
but  healthy ;  and  if,  in  common  with  all  the  settle 
ments,  they  found  the  air  of  America  very  cold,  they 
might  say  with  Higginson,  after  his  description  of  the 
other  elements,  that  4  New  England  may  boast  of  the 
element  of  fire  more  than  all  the  rest ;  for  all  P^urope 
is  not  able  to  afford  to  make  so  great  fires  as  New  Eng 
land.  A  poor  servant,  that  is  to  possess  but  fifty  acres, 
may  afford  to  give  more  wood  for  fire,  as  good  as  the 
world  yields,  than  many  noblemen  in  England.'  Many 
were  their  wants,  but  more  their  privileges.  The  light 
struggled  in  through  windows  of  oiled  paper,  but  they 
read  the  word  of  God  by  it.  They  were  fain  to  make 
use  of  their  knees  for  a  table,  but  their  limbs  were 
their  own.  Hard  labour  and  spare  diet  they  had,  and 
off  wooden  trenchers,  but  they  had  peace  and  freedom, 
and  the  wailing  of  the  tempest  in  the  woods  sounded 
kindlier  in  their  ear  than  tlu-  .smooth  voice  of  the  pre- 


MAYFLOWEUINGS.  25 

lates  at  home  in  England.  '  There  is  no  people,'  said 
their  pastor  to  his  little  flock  of  exiles,  i  but  will  strive 
to  excel  in  something.  What  can  we  excel  in,  if  not  in 
holiness  ? ' ' 

When  the  war  of  the  Revolution  broke  out,  Concord 
bore  an  important  part.  It  contained  at  that  time 
about  1300  inhabitants,  and  no  other  place  of  its  size 
in  America  furnished  so  much  aid  to  Washington.  In 
its  records  is  this  entry  :  —  "  Since  General  Washington 
at  Cambridge  is  not  able  to  give  but  $2.48  the  cord  for 
wood  for  the  army,  it  is  voted  that  this  town  encourage 
the  inhabitants  to  supply  the  army  by  paying  $2  per 
cord  over  and  above  the  General's  price  to  such  as 
shall  carry  wood  thither."  They  furnished  hay  to  the 
army  in  the  same  generous  way,  and  when  Boston  was 
suffering,  they  relieved  its  people  with  grain  and  money. 
A  provincial  Congress  was  held  at  Concord  in  1774. 
During  the  year  1775-76,  when  Washington  had  his 
headquarters  at  Cambridge,  he  used  the  Harvard  build 
ings  for  barracks,  and  the  university  was  for  the  time 
transferred  to  Concord. 

In  his  address  Emerson  reviewed  with  just  pride  the 
history  of  his  town.  It  was  fortunate  and  favoured, 
he  said,  in  having  received  so  large  an  infusion  of  both 
of  the  most  important  periods  of  the  country  —  the 
Planting  and  the  Revolutionary.  Its  true  story  would 
exhibit  a  community  almost  exclusively  agricultural, 
distinguished  by  simplicity,  contentment,  love  of  jus 
tice,  and  religious  character.  And  yet  "  more  sacred 
influences  have  mingled  here  with  the  stream  of  human 
life,"  he  says  ;  the  merit  of  its  famous  men  "  sheds  a 
perfume  less  sweet  than  do  the  sacrifices  of  private 


26  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

virtue."  There  are  many  old  stories  told  in  Concord 
which  justify  the  high  character  claimed  for  it  by  Em 
erson.  For  instance,  when,  after  their  repulse  at 
Concord  Bridge,  some  of  the  retreating  British  soldiers 
fell  wounded  at  various  points  along  the  road  leading 
toward  Boston,  they  were  taken  into  the  homes  of  those 
whom  they  had  invaded  and  tenderly  nursed.  Some 
of  them  recovered  and  remained  through  life  in  the 
town,  captives  of  this  practical  love  of  enemies.  In 
Hawthorne's  posthumous  tale,  the  conversation  be 
tween  Septimius  and  Rose  as  they  see  the  British  sol 
diers  approaching,  their  horror  at  the  thought  of  en 
mity  with  such  brave  fellows,  is  conceived  in  the  true 
spirit  of  the  Concordians  of  that  day. 

44  Here,"  said  Emerson,  "  are  no  ridiculous  laws,  no 
eavesdropping  legislators,  no  hanging  of  witches,  no 
ghosts,  no  whipping  of  Quakers,  no  unnatural  crimes. 
The  tone  of  the  records  rises  with  the  dignity  of  the 
event.  These  soiled  and  musty  books  are  luminous 
and  electric  within.  The  old  town-clerks  did  not  spell 
very  correctly,  but  they  contrive  to  make  pretty  intel 
ligible  the  will  of  a  free  and  just  community.  Frugal 
our  fathers  were,  very  frugal,  though  for  the  most  part 
they  deal  generously  by  their  minister,  and  provide 
well  for  the  schools  and  the  poor.  If  at  any  time,  in 
common  with  most  of  our  towns,  they  have  carried  this 
economy  to  the  verge  of  a  vice,  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  a  town  is,  in  many  respects,  a  financial  corpora 
tion.  They  economise  that  they  may  sacrifice.  They 
stint  and  higgle  in  the  price  of  a  pew  that  they  may 
send  two  hundred  soldiers  to  General  Washington 
to  keep  Great  Britain  at  bay.  For  splendour  there  must 


MAYFLOWEELNGS.  27 

somewhere  be  rigid  economy.  That  the  head  of  the 
house  may  go  brave,  the  members  must  go  plainly 
clad,  and  the  town  must  save  that  the  State  may 
spend." 

The  earnestness  with  which  Emerson  dwells  upon 
the  details  of  the  story  reveals  that  therein  lay  the  root 
of  his  own  character.  And  when,  in  the  end,  he 
expressed  the  hope  that  "  the  little  society  of  men  who 
now  for  a  few  years  fish  in  this  river,  plough  the  fields 
it  washes,  mow  the  grass,  and  reap  the  corn,"  might 
be  worthy  of  such  ancestors  and  antecedents,  we  can 
recognise,  what  his  hearers  of  1835  then  could  not,  that 
the  young  Harvard  scholar  was  to  repeat  in  a  higher 
plane  the,  heroism  of  his  ancestor  —  the  Pastor 
Bulkeley  —  to  lead  a  band  from  old  theologic  settle 
ments,  and  make  the  wilderness  bloom  with  nobler 
thoughts  and  aims. 


28  EMEKSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 


II. 

FORERUNNERS. 

OF  the  founder  of  Concord,  Peter  Bulkeley,  a  very 
interesting  account  is  given  by  Mr.  W.  Hale  White 
in  the  "  Athenaeum  "  of  May  13,  1882  :  —  "He  wrote 
Latin  verse  with  ease,  and  yet  he  was  as  fervent  as 
Bunyan  in  all  matters  touching  the  soul  and  the  soul's 
welfare.  He  loved  his  learning,  and  never  forsook  it, 
but  it  was  subdued  into  the  service  of  a  Divine  Master. 
His  neighbours  observed  of  him  that  whenever  they 
came  into  his  company,  no  matter  what  the  business 
might  be,  he  would  '  let  fall  some  holy,  serious,  divine, 
and  useful  sentences  on  them  ere  they  parted  ; '  and  it 
is  also  recorded  of  him  that,  '  by  a  sort  of  winning 
and  yet  prudent  familiarity,  he  drew  persons  of  all 
ages  to  come  and  sit  with  him.'  There  was  a  quarrel 
in  the  church  while  he  was  minister  over  it,  but  he 
healed  it  at  last,  and  afterwards  he  told  his  friends 
that  he  '  thereby  came  —  ln  to  know  more  of  God  ;  2. 
to  know  more  of  himself;  3.  to  know  more  of  men/ 
His  contemporaries  seem  to  have  been  impressed  with 
his  kindness  to  his  servants,  for  it  remains  on  record, 
although  the  details  of  his  life  are  so  few.  When  they 
had  lived  with  him  a  number  of  years,  it  was  his  prac 
tice  to  dismiss  them,  and  bestow  farms  upon  them. 


FORERUNNERS.  29 

'  Thus  he  cast  his  bread  both  upon  the  waters  and  into 
the  earth,  not  expecting  the  return  of  this  his  charity 
to  a  religious  plantation  until  after  many  days.  With 
all  his  culture  and  gentleness,  it  is  distinctly  said  of 
him  by  Neal,  in  a  chance  notice  of  him  in  the  4  History 
of  New  England,'  that  he  was  a  c  thundering  preacher.' 
In  other  words,  although  he  had  in  him  something  of 
the  '  Essays,'  there  was  also  in  him  something  of  the 
temper  which  more  than  two  centuries  and  a  half  after 
wards  re-appeared  in  the  '  Voluntaries '  of  one  who  felt 

'  Only  the  fiery  thread 
Leading  over  heroic  ground 
Walled  with  mortal  terror  round.' 

"  '  The  Gospel  Covenant,'  the  only  book  Dr.  Bulkeley 
wrote,  is  a  series  of  Puritan  sermons  on  faith,  justifica 
tion,  and  the  law.  It  is  now  almost  unreadable,  but  I 
remember  a  passage  in  it  which  is  a  prophecy  of  what 
was  to  come.  It  is  as  follows  :  — 

"'And  hence,  while  the  mind  is  possessed  with 
these  things,  because  so  great  a  businesse  as  making  a 
covenant  of  peace  with  the  High  God,  and  about  so 
great  an  affair  as  the  life  and  salvation  of  our  soule 
cannot  be  transacted  in  a  tumult,  therefore,  in  the 
fourth  place,  faith  takes  the  soule  aside  and  carries  it 
into  some  solitary  place,  that  there  it  may  be  alone  with 
God,  with  whom  it  hath  to  doe.  This  business  and 
multitude  of  other  occasions  cannot  be  done  together, 
and  therefore  the  soule  must  be  alone,  that  it  may  the 
more  fully  commune  with  itself,  and  utter  itself  fully 
before  the  Lord.  Thus  the  poor  Church  in  the  time  of 
her  affliction,  when  the  Lord  seemed  to  hide  himself  from 


30       EMERSON  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 

her,  she  sate  alone,  as  she  speakes  Lament.  3,  28,  29, 
and  Jer.  15,  17,  /  sate  atone  because  of  thy  plague : 
The  ivay  of  the  Lord  is  prepared  in  the  dexart,  Esay  40. 
3.  When  the  Lord  will  come  to  the  soule  and  draw  it 
into  communion  with  himselfe,  he  will  have  his  way 
hereto  prepared  in  the  desart ;  not  in  the  throng  of  a 
city,  but  in  a  solitary  desart  place,  he  will  allure  us 
and  draw  us  into  the  wildernesse  from  the  company  of 
men,  when  he  will  speak  to  our  heart,  and  when  He 
prepares  our  heart  to  speak  unto  Him." 

Two  centuries  after  the  old  pilgrim  sailed  to  the 
American  wilderness  with  these  thoughts  and  hopes, 
his  great  descendant  returned  from  a  pilgrimage  to 
teachers  in  the  Old  World  with  such  melodies  as  these 
in  his  heart :  — 

"  Whoso  walketh  in  solitude, 
And  inhabitcth  the  wood, 
Choosing  light,  wave,  rock,  and  bird, 
Before  the  money-loving  herd, 
Into  that  forester  shall  pass 
From  these  companions  power  and  grace; 
Clean  shall  he  be,  without,  within, 
From  the  old  adhering  sin." 

Professor  Tyler  (Hist.  American  Literature,  i.  218) 
says  of  "  The  Gospel  Covenant :  "  "  The  whole  work 
carries  momentum  with  it.  It  gives  the  impression 
of  an  athletic,  patient,  and  orderly  intellect.  Every 
advance  along  the  page  is  made  with  the  tread  of 
logical  victory.  No  unsubdued  enemies  are  left  in 
the  rear.  It  is  a  monumental  book.  It  stands  for  the 
intellectual  robustness  of  New  England  in  the  first  age. 
It  is  an  honour  to  that  community  of  pioneers,  drudging 


FORERUNNERS.  31 

in  the  woods  of  Concord,  that  these  profound  and 
elaborate  discourses  could  have  been  produced,  and 
endured  among  them." 

Dr.  Bulkeley,  it  is  to  be  feared,  was  over-logical 
when  the  "prophetess"  Anne  Hutchinson  came  to 
New  England  with  her  transcendentalism  about  the 
real  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  true  believers.  He 
was  Moderator  of  the  Boston  Synod,  which  immoder 
ately  drove  her  away  to  Rhode  Island, where  the  Nara- 
gansett  Indians  permitted  her  to  set  up  her  community, 
in  which  no  one  was  accounted  a  delinquent  for  doc 
trine. 

Thomas  Emerson  emigrated  from  England  to 
America  in  1G35.  It  may  have  been  from  York, 
where  a  Ralph  Emerson  was  knighted  by  Henry  VIII. 
(1535),  or  from  Durham,  where  the  mathematician  of 
that  name  lived,  whose  heraldic  arms  were  the  same 
as  those  of  the  knight.  The  lions  from  this  coat  of 
arms  are  still  traceable  upon  the  tomb  of  Nathaniel 
(son  of  Thomas)  Emerson  at  Ipswich,  Massachusetts. 
Thomas  became  a  farmer  and  baker  at  Ipswich.  He 
was  thrifty  and  made  money.  His  will,  dated  May  31, 
1653,  distributes  a  large  property  among  his  family. 
He  gives  to  his  "loving  wife"  Elizabeth  the  annual 
rent  of  his  farm  and  six  head  of  cattle ;  and  if  she 
shall  marry  again,  she  is  to  have  six  pounds  annually 
(a  considerable  sum  in  that  time  and  place),  also  "  the 
little  feather-bed,  and  one  bolster,  and  two  pairs  of 
sheets,  and  two  cows,"  and  half  the  fruit  of  the 
orchard.  The  loving  wife  is  also  appointed  sole 
executrix,  while  Lieutenant-Governor  Symonds  and 
General  Dennison  are  to  be  overseers  of  the  estate. 


32  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

His  son  John,  who  married  the  Lieutenant-Governor's 
daughter,  went  to  Harvard  College  after  his  marriage, 
and  there  graduated  in  1656,  having  earned  the  money 
to  pay  for  his  own  education.  He  became  minister  at 
Gloucester,  Massachusetts,  and  from  him  descended 
the  anti-slavery  orator,  Wendell  Phillips ;  the  most 
eloquent  American  clergyman,  Phillips  Brooks  ;  and 
the  Hon.  Alphonso  Taft,  sometime  Attorney-General 
of  the  United  States,  and  now  American  Minister  at 
Vienna. 

For  James,  a  son  in  England,  the  will  of  Thomas 
Emerson  provides  that  he  shall  have  forty  pounds  if  he 
shall  come  to  America,  or  send  a  certificate  of  his  being 
alive  within  two  years  after  his  mother's  death.  The 
house  of  Thomas  is  still  standing  at  Ipswich,  near 
tk  Labor-in-vain"  Creek.  His  son  Joseph,  born  in 
England  the  year  that  the  "Mayflower"  sailed, 
married  Miss  Woodmancy,  and  settled  at  Wells,  Maine, 
as  a  teacher.  He  was  a  distinguished  citizen  of  that 
place,  and  when  the  Massachusetts  Commissioners  went 
to  settle  the  rule  of  their  colony  over  Maine,  they  were 
received  in  his  house.  About  fourteen  years  after 
settling  in  Wells,  Joseph  became  the  preacher 
there ;  but  under  his  ministry  occurred  a  schism,  the 
cause  of  which  is  unexplained;  and  in  1667  we  find 
him  preaching  at  Milton,  Massachusetts.  Meantime, 
in  1665,  he  had  married  Elizabeth  Bulkeley  of  Concord, 
granddaughter  of  the  founder  of  that  town.  In  1669 
he  became  the  minister  of  Mendon,  in  the  same  State. 
This  Joseph,  the  great-great-grandfather  of  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson,  ?was  the  first  minister  at  Mendon, 
and  there  is  something  notable  in  his  contract  with  the 


FORERUNNERS.  33 

people  there.  The  township  had  been  partitioned  by 
the  settlers  in  estates  of  forty  acres  each.  The  minis 
ter  is  to  become  an  equal  citizen  by  having  also  his 
forty  acres,  on  which  they  are  to  build  him  a  house. 
And  it  is  contracted  that  if  for  any  reason  he  should 
be  dismissed  from  or  compelled  to  separate  from  the 
church,  this  property  was  to  continue  his  possession, 
or,  if  he  should  die,  belong  to  his  family.  There  may 
have  been  some  reminiscence  of  experiences  in  Maine 
which  led  to  this  carefulness,  but  there  is  also  in  it  that 
substantial  relation  with  affairs  which  Lowell  recog 
nized  in  Joseph's  great  descendant  — 

"  A  Greek  head  on  right  Yankee  shoulders,  whose  range 
Has  Olympus  for  one  pole,  for  t'other  the  Exchange." 

The  Emersons  were  always  as  generous  as  they  were 
thrifty  ;  and,  securing  their  independence  as  to  means, 
they  returned  more  to  their  fellow-citizens  than  they 
got.  It  was  the  rule  in  the  family  to  distribute  their 
possessions  equally  between  the  members  of  their  fam 
ilies,  and  so  no  large  Emerson  fortune  was  accu 
mulated.  When  Mendon  was  destroyed  in  King  Phil 
ip's  war,  the  Rev.  Joseph  Emerson  moved  to  Concord, 
where  he  died  in  1680.  His  son  Edward  became  a 
merchant  at  Charlestown,  Boston.  He  was  born  in 
1C 70,  and  in  1697  married  Rebecca  Waldo  of  Chelms- 
ford,  Massachusetts.  This  lady,  a  descendant  of  a 
family  of  the  Waldenses  who  had  become  London  mer 
chants,  was  some  years  older  than  her  husband,  and 
outlived  him,  reaching  a  great  age.  His  son  Joseph, 
minister  at  Maiden,  Massachusetts,  married  Mary 
Moody,  daughter  of  a  minister.  They  had  ten  chil- 


34       EMEHSON  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 

dren,  of  whom  two  became  ministers.  Joseph,  the 
second  child,  became  minister  of  Pepperell ;  and  the 
ninth  of  the  family,  William,  was  pastor  of  Concord 
when  the  Revolution  began. 

It  is  pleasant  enough  to  believe  that  the  vigorous 
English  stock  which  had  given  intellectual  and  moral 
leaders  to  seven  New  England  towns,  and  to  several 
their  founders,  was  meanwhile  represented  in  the 
mother  country  by  that  William  Emerson  whose  marble 
effigy  remains  in  St.  Saviour's  Church,  Southwark, 
and  Thomas,  his  grandson,  whose  charitable  bequest 
(1G20)  still  brings  comfort  to  twelve  aged  pensioners 
in  London.  The  epitaph  on  the  tomb  is,  "Here 
under  lyeth  the  body  of  William  Emerson,  who  lived 
and  died  an  honest  man.  He  departed  out  of  this 
life  the  27th  of  June  anno  1575,  in  the  year  of  his 
age  92.  Ut  sym  sic  eris."  The  pensioners  sit  to 
gether  every  Sunday  in  St.  Saviour's,  in  seats  marked 
"Emerson's  Pensioners,"  and  after  the  morning  service 
receive  from  one  of  the  wardens  each  their  weekly 
three-and-ninepence.  With  this  same  old  church  was 
connected  Mr.  Harvard,  who  was  a  Governor  of  its 
Grammar  School,  and  father  of  the  founder  of  Har 
vard  University.  Lately  I  walked  from  St.  Saviour's 
to  the  old  Emerson  estate  in  the  Borough,  passing 
along  Park  Road  to  Summer  Street,  and  there  found 
Emerson  Place  and  Emerson  Terrace,  the  quietest  spot 
of  that  crowded  region.  All  Boston  names  !  Yet  the 
helpful  chaplain  of  St.  Saviour's  cannot  find  the  family 
arms  of  this  benefactor,  and  one  can  only  conjecture 
that  the  recurrence  of  the  names  "William"  and 
"  Thomas"  and  the  name  of  the  estate  ("  God's  Prov- 


FORERUNNERS.  35 

idence  "),  indicate  a  common  origin  with  the  American 
family. 

There  is  less  reason  to  doubt  that  the  Emersons  who 
gave  America  the  first  of  that  name  also  gave  England 
the  famous  Durham  mathematician,  William  Emerson 
(1701-82),  whose  arms  were  the  same.  When  I  men 
tioned  this  to  Emerson  he  said,  u  Then  he  must  have 
appropriated  all  my  mathematics,  for  I  can't  multiply 
7  by  12  with  security."  To  which  I  returned  a  sen 
tence  spoken  by  him  many  years  before  — ' '  The  vine 
which  intoxicates  the  world  is  the  most  mathematical 
of  plants."  Some  characteristics  of  the  Durham  mathe 
matician  were  certainly  Emersonian  ;  notably  his  fond 
ness  for  the  solitude  of  his  paternal  estate,  his  severe  in 
dependence,  and  his  exceeding  care  about  the  proof  of 
his  books.  Having  walked  all  the  way  from  Durham  to 
London,  when  he  had  a  work  in  press,  he  revised  every 
sheet  as  it  appeared,  and  could  not  endure  an  error. 
He  was  suspected  of  familiarity  writh  the  black  art. 
Carlyle  told  me  the  story  of  a  poor  woman  whose  hus 
band  had  not  returned  from  sea  at  the  usual  time, 
and  who  went  to  consult  William  Emerson.  He  hap 
pened  to  meet  her  at  the  door,  and  when  with  a 
curtesy  she  asked  where  her  man  might  be,  "In  hell," 
was  the  old  man's  answer,  emphasised  by  his  door's 
sharp  slam. 

Ralph  Waldo  was  more  courteous  when  he  was  sup 
posed  to  be  dealing  in  uncanny  knowledge. 

William  Emerson,  the  grandfather  of  Ralph  Waldo, 
was  the  first  with  whom  liberal  religious  ideas  may  be 
clearly  connected.  It  was  at  the  end  of  a  controversy 
in  Concord  over  the  theology  of  Jonathan  Edwards 


36  EMERSOlf    AT    HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

that  the  Arminians  found  themselves  strong  enough  to 
elect  an  opponent  of  extreme  Calvinism,  and  as  the 
result  William  Emerson  was  chosen  minister  of  the 
church.  There  are,  however,  indications  that  the 
Emersons  had  historically  represented  the  vanguard 
of  the  pilgrimage  from  Puritanism.  William  Emerson 
was  born  in  1743,  graduated  at  Harvard  in  1761,  set 
tled  over  the  Concord  congregation  in  17G4,  and,  hav 
ing  married  in  17GG,  built  the  famous  Old  Manse  for 
his  residence,  in  1767.  He  was  chaplain  of  the  Con 
tinental  Congress  in  the  Revolution,  and  in  that  war 
he  did  great  service,  arousing  the  people  by  his  elo 
quence  and  fine  enthusiasm.  He  died  of  a  fever  caught 
while  accompanying  the  army  in  1776. 

The  next  minister  at  Concord  was  Dr.  Ezra  Ripley. 
He  married  the  widow — and,  so  to  say,  the  church — - 
of  William  Emerson,  and  occupied  the  Old  Manse. 
He  lived  long  enough  to  be  a  bridge  between  the 
Arminian  and  the  Unitarian  doctrine,  with  which  last 
the  church  became  identified  during  his  ministry.  He 
was  especially  remarkable  for  his  personal  and 
patriarchal  relations  with  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  in  Concord,  and  not  one  of  them  could  be 
afflicted  without  being  prayed  for  by  name.  An  anec 
dote  related  by  Dr.  George  Ellis  shows  that  the  old 
man  must  have  been  a  sort  of  "survival."  "Dr. 
Charming  told  me  expressly  always,  in  the  public 
prayer  of  the  church,  to  recognise  the  afflicted.  'Af 
flicted  and  sorrowing  persons  are  always  around  us. 
Make  reference  to  them  as  tenderly  as  you  wish,  but 
never  specify  any  case/  was  his  advice.  Very  shortly 
after  I  was  settled  —  it  must  have  been  forty  years 


FORERUNNERS.  37 

ago  —  I  went  up  to  exchange  with  Barzillai  Frost,  who 
was  the  colleague  of  the  good  and  venerable  Dr. 
Ripley,  who,  of  course,  followed  the  old  ways.  He 
was  very  marked  for  the  quality  of  specific  personal 
references  in  his  prayers.  Some  of  you  may  remember 
that  Mr.  Emerson,  in  paying  his  tribute  to  Dr.  Ripley 
after  his  death,  spoke  of  that  quality  of  individualising 
in  prayer.  A  man  had  died  in  his  parish  who  did  not 
bear  a  very  good  name,  but  was  a  very  strong  man ; 
and  on  two  occasions  he  had  been  of  service  at  fires, 
and  saved  life  or  furniture.  At  the  funeral  Dr.  Ripley 
prayed,  '  We  thank  thee,  O  Lord,  that  thy  departed 
servant  was  good  at  fires.'  I  had  an  experience  with 
this  Dr.  Ripley.  I  went,  as  I  say,  to  exchange  with 
Mr.  Frost.  It  was  a  great  breach  of  courtesy  on  my 
part  that  I  did  not  go  to  the  home  of  the  aged  pastor 
to  attend  him  to  meeting ;  but  I  accompanied  Mrs. 
Frost,  and  got  into  the  pulpit  first.  After  a  while  I 
heard  the  steps  of  the  venerable  man  slipping  along ; 
and,  as  he  got  toward  the  stairs  of  the  pulpit,  he  asked 
aloud,  'Has  the  minister  gone  up  yet?'  I  stood  up 
and  opened  the  door  to  welcome  him  in.  He  handed 
me  two  notes.  They  had  no  names  attached,  but 
referred  to  families  in  the  congregation.  I,  of  course, 
knew  nothing  about  them.  I  followed  my  rule  in  the 
prayer  of  general  reference.  Dr.  Ripley  was  hard  of 
hearing,  and  leaned  up  against  me,  with  his  hand 
behind  his  ear,  while  I  prayed,  making  me  very  uncom 
fortable.  The  'Amen'  was  scarcely  out  of  my  mouth 
before  he  said  aloud,  'You  said  nothing  about  our 
afflicted  friends.'  I  had  to  raise  my  voice  to  make  him 
hear,  as  I  replied,  '  I  make  it  a  rule  not  to  make  any 


38       EMERSON  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 

special  references  in  prayer.'  *  It's  a  very  poor  rule, 
and  the  sooner  you  change  it  the  better  ! '  he  shouted 
in  answer.  I  told  Mr.  Frost  that,  so  long  as  Dr. 
Ripley  lived,  I  must  decline  going  into  that  pulpit 
again." 

4i  He  seemed,"  said  Emerson  of  Dr.  Ripley,  who 
died  in  1841,  "in  his  constitutional  leaning  to  their 
religion,  one  of  the  rearguard  of  the  great  camp 
and  army  of  the  Puritans ;  and  now,  when  all  the 
platforms  and  customs  of  the  church  are  losing  their 
hold  in  the  affections  of  men,  it  was  fit  that  he  should 
depart ;  fit  that,  in  the  fall  of  laws,  a  loyal  man  should 
die." 

William  Emerson,  the  father  of  Ralph  Waldo, 
was  born  in  the  Old  Manse  in  1769.  He  was  six  years 
old  when  the  shuddering  family  gazed  upon  the  Con 
cord  fight  beneath  their  windows.  He  was  an  only 
son,  and  at  eleven  years  of  age,  by  his  mother's 
marriage  with  Dr.  Ripley,  came  under  the  care  of  that 
kindly  old  minister.  The  Old  Manse  was  the  seat  of 
a  fine  hospitality,  and  William  was  able  to  listen  to  the 
best  conversation.  His  career,  which  would  probably 
have  added  a  shining  name  to  American  letters  had  he 
not  died  prematurely,  singularly  coincides  with  that  of 
his  son  Ralph.  He  graduated  at  Harvard  at  seventeen 
with  a  similar  reputation  for  excellence  in  composition, 
rhetoric,  and  classical  studies.  He  taught  school, 
studied  theology  irregularly,  and  as  a  preacher  made  a 
strong  impression.  He  was  the  most  liberal  preacher 
who  had  yet  appeared  in  Boston,  when  he  was  installed 
there  over  the  First  Church  (1799),  and  devoted  him 
self  to  what  was  universal  and  ethical  in  Christianity. 


FORERUNNERS.  39 

He  is  described  as  a  blond,  handsome  man,  graceful 
and  benignant,  with  a  melodious  voice,  and  in  every 
respect  simple  and  scholarly.  In  a  sketch  of  William 
Tudor,  in  Duyckiuck's  "Cyclopaedia  of  American  Lit 
erature,"  we  have  a  remarkable  anticipation  of  the  time 
of  the  Transcendental  Club  and  the  "Dial."  This 
journal,  which  bore  the  name  of  "  The  Monthly  Anthol 
ogy,"  was  originally  commenced  in  November,  1803,  by 
Mr.  Phineas  Adams,  a  graduate  of  Harvard,  and  at  the 
time  teacher  of  a  school  in  Boston.  At  the  end  of  six 
months  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Rev.  William 
Emerson,  who,  joining  a  few  friends  with  him,  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  "  Anthology  Club."  The  magazine 
was  then  announced  as  edited  "by  a  society  of  gentle 
men."  By  the  theory  of  the  club  every  member  was 
to  write  for  the  "  Anthology,"  but  the  rule  was  modi 
fied,  as  usual,  by  the  social  necessities  of  the  company, 
and  the  journal  was  greatly  indebted  to  outsiders  for 
its  articles.  The  members,  however,  had  the  privilege 
of  paying  its  expenses,  which  in  those  days  could 
hardly  have  been  expected  to  be  met  by  the  public. 
In  giving  an  account  of  this  work  subsequently,  Mr. 
Tudor  remarks  :  "  Whatever  may  have  been  the  merit 
of  the  '  Anthology,'  its  authors  would  have  been  sadly 
disappointed  if  they  had  looked  for  any  other  advan 
tages  to  be  derived  from  it  than  an  occasional  smile 
from  the  public,  the  amusement  of  their  task,  and  the 
pleasure  of  their  social  meetings.  The  publication 
never  gave  enough  to  pay  the  moderate  expense  of 
their  suppers,  and  through  their  whole  career  they 
wrote  and  paid  for  the  pleasure  of  writing."  Whereon 
we  may  reflect  in  the  saying  of  one  born  in  the 


40  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

same  year  as  his  father's  "Anthology"  —  "  Sport  is 
the  sign  of  health."  The  magazine  enlisted  the  best 
pens,  John  Quincy  Adams,  Charming,  George  Ticknor, 
Richard  II.  Dana,  Andrews  Norton,  and  Bnckminster. 
It  died  in  1811,  when  its  editor  died,  his  son,  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson,  being  then  eight  years  old. 


THREE   FATES.  41 


m. 

THREE  FATES. 

A  FINE  copy  of  the  famous  picture  long  ascribed 
to  Michael  Angelo,  the  u  Parcre,"  hung  over 
the  fireplace  in  Emerson's  study,  a  work  of  art  mys 
tically  associated  with  him  by  his  friends.  Sometimes 
he  wove  the  thread  spun  and  clipped  by  the  old  women 
into  his  conversation.  It  meant  many  things  to  him, 
and  it  used  to  warn  some  of  his  friends  not  by  any  idle 
visit  to  clip  the  golden  thread  of  thought  which  ran 
through  the  morning  that  always  shone  in  that  study. 
But  gradually,  as  I  learned  the  story  of  Emerson's 
early  life,  the  three  formidable  faces  softened  to  those 
of  the  young  and  fair  women  who  had  presided  over 
his  destinies,  and  who  remained  young  and  fair  even 
in  old  age. 

The  mother  of  Emerson,  who  had  been  Ruth  Haskins 
of  Boston,  was  a  lady  of  refined  culture,  of  gracious 
and  religious  nature,  with  the  blended  sweetness  and 
dignity  of  manner  so  characteristic  of  the  son.  She 
builded  her  household  in  beauty  and  wisdom  when  it 
was  left  to  her  on  her  husband's  death.  Five  sons 
were  thrown  upon  her  care,  of  whom  Ralph  was  the 
second.  He  was  born  in  that  happy  and  cultured 
home  in  Boston,  and  was  eight  years  old  when  his 


42  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

father  died.  Mary  Emerson  was  second  of  the  foster 
ing  Fates,  having  devoted  herself  to  the  assistance  of 
her  brother's  widow  in  bringing  up  her  children.  Be 
sides  being  of  an  earnest  and  conscientious  nature, 
she  must  be  described  as  a  woman  of  some  genius. 
With  a  rather  formidable  eye  for  all  social  shams 
and  pretences,  a  lively  interest  in  all  large  subjects, 
and  an  individuality  that  verged  on  eccentricity,  her 
influence  was  a  stimulant  to  self-reliance.  She  was 
almost  passionately  fond  of  philosophical  studies  and 
well  acquainted  with  the  chief  European  works  of  that 
character.  There  was  a  considerable  survival  of  the 
ascetic  temper  in  her,  and  of  theological  bias,  though 
she  did  not  accept  traditional  views  in  the  traditional 
way.  In  the  discussion  of  metaphysical  problems  she 
had  few  equals,  and  her  criticisms  were  often  quoted  in 
the  controversies  which  attended  the  development  of 
heresy  in  New  England.  She  used  to  claim  that  she 
was  "in  arms  at  the  battle  of  Concord,"  being  two 
years  old  at  the  time,  and  held  up  by  her  mother  to  see 
it ;  but  in  the  theological  struggles  of  a  later  period 
her  share  was  less  equivocal. 

The  third  of  Emerson's  Parcae  was  Sarah  Bradford. 
She  was  as  fine  a  Greek  scholar  as  America  has  pro 
duced,  an  accomplished  mathematician,  and  possessed 
scientific  attainments  of  which  professors  were  glad  to 
ask  aid.  Of  this  wonderful  woman  —  not  less  admira 
ble  for  her  simplicity  and  womanly  charm  than  for  her 
scholarship  —  more  will  be  said  hereafter ;  it  may  be 
mentioned  here,  that  when  Emerson,  just  after  his 
father's  death,  entered  the  grammar  school,  and  after 
ward  when  he  was  studying  in  the  Latin  School  at 


THREE    FATES.  .      43 

Boston,  she  corresponded  with  him  about  every  book 
and  lesson,  and  revised  his  translations.  From  this 
period  she  accompanied  his  entire  progress  in  culture, 
and  to  the  last  was  the  intimate  friend  of  his  thought. 

These  three  women,  all  refined  and  cultivated  —  rep 
resenting  the  religious  sensibility,  the  self-reliance,  and 
the  philosophical  thought  and  scientific  scholarship  of 
the  New  England  renaissance,  so  to  say  —  had  charge 
of  the  Emerson  boys.  Never  were  maternal  Parcae 
more  triumphant.  The  annals  of  Harvard  may  be 
searched  in  vain  to  find  more  brilliant  careers  than 
those  of  several  of  these  youths.  It  was  even  for  a 
time  doubtful  which  of  them  was  to  be  u  the  coming 
man."  Affectionate  with  each  other,  sympathetic  in 
their  studies  and  opinions,  devoted  to  their  mother  and 
her  two  friends  (of  whom  indeed  any  youths  might 
have  been  proud) ,  they  were  born  free  of  the  besetting 
vices  of  young  men,  while  full  of  humour  and  enter 
prise. 

The  family,  without  being  straitened  in  circumstances, 
had  to  observe  strict  eccnomy  for  the  supreme  object 
of  education,  and  when  the  elder  had  graduated  they 
taught  school  to  pay  the  way  of  the  younger  through 
college.  William  was  to  have  entered  the  ministry, 
and  went  to  Germany  to  pursue  his  studies  for  that 
end.  He  there  formed  the  acquaintance  of  Goethe, 
and  studied  German  criticisms  until  his  opinions 
became  sceptical  concerning  Christianity,  and  he  was 
compelled  to  disappoint  his  mother  in  his  selection  of 
a  profession.  He  died  a  few  years  ago,  after  a  suc 
cessful  career  in  New  York  as  a  barrister.  It  required 
a  good  deal  of  moral  courage  in  the  elder  son  to  dis- 


44    .  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

appoint  his  mother  and  the  eminent  clergymen  around 
her,  who  were  looking  forward  to  another  William 
Emerson,  to  make  good  the  promise  of  the  brilliant 
father. 

The  third  son,  Edward  Bliss,  also  studied  law,  and 
in  the  office  of  Daniel  Webster  ;  but  lost  his  health  in 
early  life,  and  went  to  Porto  Rico,  where  he  died. 
"The  Last  Farewell,"  written  by  him  in  1832,  while 
sailing  out  of  Boston  harbour  on  the  voyage  from 
which  he  never  returned,  was  printed  in  the  first  num 
ber  of  the  "  Dial,"  and  is  included  in  "  May  Day, 
and  other  Poems,"  followed  by  Emerson's  "  In  Memo- 
riam."  Robert  Bulkeley  was  enfeebled  by  scarlet  fever, 
and  died  in  middle  life. 

Charles  Chauncy  died  in  1836.  This  was  a  particu 
larly  heavy  bereavement,  not  only  to  the  family,  but 
to  a  large  circle  of  friends.  He  was  betrothed  to 
Elizabeth  Hoar  of  Concord,  then  as  afterwards  an 
intimate  and  cherished  friend  of  Emerson. 

In  the  "Dial"  some  literary  fragments  left  by 
Charles  Emerson  were  published  as  "  Notes  from  the 
Journal  of  a  Scholar,"  preceded  by  lines  from  Per- 
sius  — 

u  Nunc  non  e  mnnibus  illis 
Nunc  non  e  tumulo,  fortunataque  favilla 
Naseuntur  violas?  " 

Those  who  read  these  casual  but  most  suggestive  para 
graphs  concerning  Homer,  Shakespeare,  Burke,  will  not 
wonder  at  the  enthusiasm  of  his  friends,  which  antici 
pated  for  him  a  brilliant  career.  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell 


THREE    FATES.  45 

Holmes,  who  was    his   class-mate,  wrote   concerning 
Charles  Emerson  these  beautiful  lines :  — 

"  Thou  calm,  chaste  scholar !    I  can  see  thee  now, 
The  first  young  laurels  on  thy  pallid  brow ; 
O'er  thy  slight  figure  floating  lightly  down 
In  graceful  folds  the  academic  gown ; 
On  thy  curled  lip  the  classic  lines,  that  taught 
How  nice  the  mind  that  sculptured  them  with  thought, 
And  triumph  glistening  in  the  clear  blue  eye, 
Too  bright  to  live,  —  but  oh,  too  fair  to  die !  " 

I  quote  a  passage  from  Charles  Emerson's  journal, 
from  which  one  may  gather  that  he  did  not  die,  but  was 
caught  up  into  the  spirit  of  the  brother  who  mourned 
his  loss  so  profoundly. 

"  This  afternoon  we  read  Shakespeare.  The  verse 
so  sank  into  me,  that  as  I  toiled  my  way  home  under 
the  cloud  of  night,  with  the  gusty  music  of  the  storm 
around  and  overhead,  I  doubted  that  it  was  all  a  re 
membered  scene  ;  that  humanity  was  indeed  one,  a 
spirit  continually  reproduced,  accomplishing  a  vast 
orbit,  whilst  individual  men  are  but  the  points  through 
which  it  passes. 

' '  We  each  of  us  furnish  to  the  angel  who  stands  in 
the  sun  a  single  observation.  The  reason  why  Homer 
is  to  me  like  dewy  morning  is  because  I  too  lived  while 
Troy  was,  and  sailed  in  the  hollow  ships  of  the  Gre 
cians  to  sack  the  devoted  town.  The  rosy-fingered 
dawn  as  it  crimsoned  the  top  of  Ida,  the  broad  sea 
shore  dotted  with  tents,  the  Trojan  hosts  in  their 
painted  armour,  and  the  rushing  chariots  of  Diomed 
and  Idomeneus  —  all  these  too  I  saw ;  my  ghost  ani- 


46  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

mated  the  frame  of  some  nameless  Argive.  And 
Shakespeare  in  '  King  John '  does  but  recall  me  to 
myself  in  the  dress  of  another  age,  the  sport  of  new 
accidents.  I,  who  am  Charles,  was  sometime  Romeo. 
In  Hamlet,  I  pondered  and  doubted.  We  forget  what 
we  have  been,  drugged  with  the  sleepy  bowl  of  the 
present ;  but  when  a  lively  chord  in  the  soul  is  struck, 
when  the  windows  for  a  moment  are  unbarred,  the 
long  and  varied  past  is  recovered.  We  recognise  it 
all.  We  are  no  more  brief,  ignoble  creatures ;  we 
seize  our  immortality,  and  bind  together  the  related 
parts  of  our  secular  being." 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  elemental  Fates  did  but  par 
tially  second  the  faithful  and  wise  human  Providences 
which  had  watched  over  these  young  men.  It  may 
partly  have  been  the  pain  suffered  in  the  loss  of  his 
brothers  which  taught  Emerson  his  peculiar  horror  of 
ill-health,  which  he  spoke  of  as  a  ghoul,  and  dreaded 
as  the  hermits  did  any  sign  of  a  demon  invading  their 
solitude  It  may  also  have  been  in  part  the  love,  wis 
dom,  and  character  represented  in  his  three  Fates  — 
Ruth,  Sarah,  Mary  —  which  made  him  among  the  earli 
est  to  demand  that  the  equality  of  woman  with  man 
should  be  represented  in  politics  and  the  laws. 


A   BOSTON    BOY,  47 


IV. 

A  BOSTON  BOY. 

THE  later  life  of  Emerson  furnishes  various  fore 
grounds  from  which  his  early  life  may  be  seen  in 
right  perspective.  That  which  I  select  is  the  great 
New  Year's  Day  of  18G3,  which  brought  President 
Lincoln's  proclamation  of  freedom  to  the  American 
slaves,  when  Emerson  read  to  a  large  assembly  his 
noble  Boston  Hymn. 

The   proclamation  found   the  people   assembled   in 
Boston  and  Emerson  reading  to  them  his  Hymn  :  — 

u  The  word  of  the  Lord  by  night 
To  the  watching  Pilgrims  came 
As  they  sat  by  the  seaside, 
And  filled  their  hearts  writh  flame. 

"  God  said,  I  am  tired  of  kings, 
I  suffer  them  no  more ; 
Up  to  my  ear  the  morning  brings 
The  outrage  of  the  poor." 

So  it  opened,  and  through  the  twenty-two  verses,  so 
full  of  majesty,  the  vast  audience  listened  with  hearts 
aflame. 

What  a  vista  was  visible  behind  that  scholar  who 


48  EMEHSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

came  from  his  Concord  solitude  to  rejoice  with  his 
fellow-citizens  and  set  their  bounding  pulses  to  music ! 
Near  that  fine  Music  Hall  he  was  born.  Along 
meadows  now  covered  with  mansions  he  had  driven  his 
mother's  cow  to  pasture,  pausing  on  the  way  to  read  a 
little  in  his  Greek  or  Latin  book.  As  one  of  his 
friends  lately  wrote  —  Frank  Sanborn,  a  college  com 
rade  of  my  own  —  of  that  boyhood  in  Boston  :  —  u  He 
breathed  in  its  atmosphere  and  its  traditions  as  a  boy 
while  he  drove  his  mother's  cow  to  pasture  along  what 
are  now  the  finest  streets.  He  learned  his  first  lessons 
of  life  in  its  schools  and  churches  ;  listened  to  Webster 
and  Story  in  its  courts,  to  Josiah  Quincy  and  Harrison 
Gray  Otis  in  its  town-meetings  at  Faneuil  Hall ;  heard 
sermons  in  the  Old  South  Meeting-house."  Some  years 
ago,  in  a  speech  made  at  a  little  gathering  of  grey- 
haired  gentlemen  who  had  been  his  companions  at  the 
Latin  School,  Emerson  referred  to  the  time  when  the 
city  was  in  alarm  at  the  rumoured  approach  of  the 
British  in  the  war  of  1812.^  The  master  invited  the 
boys  to  go  out  to  a  neighbouring  island  and  help  in 
throwing  up  earthern  defences  against  the  enemy.  He 
remembered  a  pleasant  holiday  on  Noddle  Island,  but 
not  any  work  done  by  the  boys.  Whether  Great 
Britain  altered  her  plans  on  discovering  this  movement 
in  the  Latin  School  he  could  not  sa}r.  Amid  such 
events  the  Boston  Hymn  was  in  process  of  composi 
tion,  line  by  line.  The  scion  of  English  noblemen  was 
learning  his  lesson  in  nobility. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Cooke,  in  his  book  on  Emerson,  tells 
a  pretty  story  of  these  early  years.  He  once  brought 
home  the  first  volume  of  a  novel  from  the  circulating 


A   BOSTON   BOY.  49 

library,  having  paid  six  cents  for  it.  His  aunt  Mary 
reproved  him  for  spending  his  money  in  that  way,  when 
it  was  so  hard  for  his  mother  to  obtain  it.  He  was  so 
affected  by  this  appeal  that  he  returned  the  volume 
and  did  not  take  out  the  other  ;  nor  was  the  end  of  the 
romance  ever  read. 

The  two  leaders  of  Boston,  in  those  early  years, 
were  Webster  and  Channing.  The  traditions  of  the 
great  struggle  for  American  independence  were  still 
fresh  in  many  memories,  and  Daniel  Webster  gathered 
up  these  in  his  powerful  intelligence,  and  was  their 
organ  on  every  national  occasion.  His  orator}7  was  of 
the  New  England  type,  not  passionate  after  the  style 
of  Southerners,  but  grave  and  impressive,  and  some 
times  rising  to  a  poetic  strain.  There  was  a  grandeur 
in  his  personal  appearance,  such  as  is  ascribed  to 
Goethe,  and  the  tones  of  his  voice  were  as  majestic. 
When  I  heard  him  in  the  United  States  Senate,  it  was 
after  he  had  begun  to  surrender  the  high  principles  of 
New  England,  and  there  was  an  undertone  of  insin 
cerity  which  excited  distrust ;  but  in  the  Supreme 
Court,  where  I  have  also  heard  him  speak,  he  was  still 
the  true  orator.  Emerson  has  often  told  me  of  the 
effect  of  Webster  upon  his  mind  in  boyhood,  when  he 
filled  up  his  ideal  of  tho  Olympian  Jove. 

Channing  had  not  as  yet  become  the  leader  of  the 
theological  revolution  afterwards  associated  with  him, 
but  he  was  the  most  eloquent  preacher  in  Boston.  He 
was  ordained  minister  of  a  congregation  there  in  1803, 
the  year  of  Emerson's  birth,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three, 
and  during  Emerson's  boyhood  was  chiefly  remarkable 
for  his  eloquent  discourses  against  war,  intemperance, 


50  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

and  other  evils.  The  Emerson  family  attended  Chan- 
ning's  church,  and  Kalph  might  have  heard,  in  1814, 
that  brilliant  thanksgiving  for  the  overthrow  of 
Napoleon.  Channing  was  intimate  in  the  Emerson 
home,  and  the  youths  always  thought  of  him  as  a  dear 
relative.  The  younger  brothers  of  Channing  also  — 
Edward,  a  fine  scholar  and  writer,  and  Walter,  an  em 
inent  physician,  both  professors  at  Harvard  —  were  of 
the  circle  of  friends  and  instructors  surrounding  Emer 
son's  early  life.  It  was  indeed  a  time  favourable  for  the 
touching  of  line  spirits.  The  controversial  era  had  not 
fully  arrived.  The  enthusiasm  of  Channing  was  for 
Wordsworth,  whose  "  Excursion  "  was  to  him  a  revela 
tion.  The  talk  was  of  poetry,  heroism,  humanity,  the 
love  of  nature  ;  and  one  of  the  earliest  ideals  that  rose 
before  the  mind  of  Emerson  was  Wordsworth,  with  his 
plain  living  and  high  thinking,  his  recognition  of  all 
grandeurs,  whether  of  nature  or  human  character,  in 
the  scenery  and  the  lowly  people  around  his  own  home. 
He  always  spoke  of  Wordsworth  as  ' '  the  great  modern 
poet,"  and  once  told  me  that  he  still  found  himself  un 
able  to  compare  any  early  intellectual  experience  with 
the  effect  produced  on  his  mind  by  the  poet's  descrip 
tion  of  the  influence  of  nature  upon  the  mind  of  a  boy. 


STUDENT   AND    TEACHER.  51 


y. 

STUDENT  AND  TEACHER. 

EMERSON  was  by  no  means  the  pedagogue's  model 
boy.  He  valued  studies  from  books  held  beneath 
the  bench  in  the  Latin  School  as  much  as  those  exacted. 
His  schoolmates  retained  affectionate  memories  of  him 
as  a  genial  and  spirited  companion.  The  widow  Em 
erson  went  to  reside  at  Cambridge  when  her  eider  sons 
were  prepared  to  enter  Harvard  University.  Emerson 
became  the  President's  freshman  there  at  the  age  of 
fourteen.  The  office,  long  since  abolished,  was  of 
some  importance  :  the  holder  of  it  was  in  the  President's 
confidence,  and  conveyed  his  will  or  admonitions  to 
other  students.  The  position  was  not  favourable  to 
an  intimate  relation  with  other  students.  His  brother 
William  was  a  senior  at  the  time,  and  possibly  Ralph 
Waldo  preferred  the  company  of  the  older  youths. 
The  proximity  of  his  room  to  that  of  the  President 
prevented  its  being  much  affected  by  other  students, 
and  he  had  more  time  for  quiet  reading.  He  had  at 
this  time  come  under  the  fascination  of  Montaigne  and 
Shakespeare,  and  was  never  able  to  devote  himself  to 
the  college  curriculum.  But  he  gained  much  from  the 
eminent  men  who  taught  in  the  university  at  that  time. 
Dr.  Kirkland  had  become  (1810)  President  of  the  uni- 


52  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

versicy,  which  entered  upon  a  new  era  —  less  religions 
and  more  scholarly  —  under  his  administration.  He 
greatly  enlarged  its  course  of  studies,  increased  the 
number  of  professorships,  and  improved  the  library. 
Some  have  dated  the  New  England  "Renaissance" 
from  his  presidency.  He  was  a  philosophical  thinker, 
a  man  of  fine  personality,  who  preferred  moulding 
minds  to  writing  books.  As  a  writer  he  possessed  a 
remarkable  power  of  generalisation.  Among  the  pro 
fessors  was  George  Ticknor,  historian  of  Spanish  Liter 
ature.  The  most  important  men  to  Emerson  were 
Edward  Everett,  professor  of  Greek  ;  Levi  Frisbie,  pro 
fessor  of  moral  philosophy,  the  great  representative  of 
the  intuitive  system  of  ethics  ;  and  Edward  Channing, 
professor  of  rhetoric  and  oratory.  Edward  Everett  was 
the  most  graceful  speaker  in  America  at  that  time,  and 
taught  by  example  what  Professor  Channing  taught  by 
precept.  In  both  of  these  studies,  Greek  and  oratory, 
Emerson  gained  prizes.  Among  the  students  to  whom 
he  was  attached  were  Josiah  Quincy,  afterwards  an 
eminent  personage  in  Boston ;  Charles  TV.  Upham,  the 
historian  of  Salem  Witchcraft ;  George  Ripley,  the 
founder  of  Brook  Farm  Community  ;  and  W.  II.  Fur- 
ness,  the  eminent  philanthropist  and  author  who  con 
ducted  Emerson's  funeral.  Mr.  Bancroft  Hill  has 
recorded  the  following  :  — 

"While  he  was  pursuing  his  college  course,  his 
mother  moved  to  Cambridge,  and  some  of  the  students 
boarded  at  her  table.  So  he  was  boarding  at  home  in 
his  sophomore  year  when  his  class  had  a  fight  with  the 
freshman  at  supper  in  Commons  Hall  —  a  fight  de 
scribed  in  the  mock-heroic  poem  '  The  Rebelliad.' 


STUDENT   AND    TEACHER.  53 

Some  of  the  sophomores  were  expelled  for  their  share 
in  the  disturbance,  and  thereupon  the  whole  class  in 
dignantly  withdrew  from  college.  Emerson  remained 
at  home  until  his  class  came  to  terms  with  the  author 
ities.  This  trouble  had  the  result  of  binding  the  class 
closely  together,  and  creating  a  warm  sympathy  which 
after  years  could  not  chill.  On  their  return  from  ban 
ishment,  Alden,  the  wag  of  the  class,  established  the 
Conventicle  Club  —  a  convivial  club  of  which  Kings- 
bury  was  archbishop,  Alden  bishop,  and  John  B.  Hill 
parson.  .  .  .  Emerson  was  one  of  the  number.  Al 
though  his  quiet  nature  kept  him  out  of  most  of  the 
convivial  societies,  he  was  always  genial,  fond  of  hear 
ing  or  telling  a  good  story,  and  ready  to  do  his  share 
towards  an  evening's  entertainment."  Emerson  was 
also  the  leading  spirit  of  a  book-club  among  the  stu 
dents  which  purchased  the  English  Reviews,  and  other 
current  literature  not  found  in  the  college  library.  He 
graduated  in  1821,  and  was  the  "  Class  Poet"  at  Com 
memoration.  The  memorable  class  of  that  year  held 
its  annual  reunion  at  Cambridge  for  fifty  years. 

Emerson  graduated  with  a  fine  reputation  in  the  uni 
versity  for  general  literary  ability,  classical  culture, 
and  eloquence.  About  this  latter,  however,  opinions 
appear  to  have  been  divided.  The  Boylston  professor 
ship  of  rhetoric  and  oratory  at  Harvard  included  all 
English  compositions,  and  attended  to  refinements  of 
style  with  very  great  care.  Emerson  twice  won  Bow- 
doin  prizes  for  dissertations,  and  in  his  senior  year  the 
second  Boylston  prize  for  elocution.  His  rival  was 
Josiah  Quincy,  in  whose  journal  is  found  the  entry : 
"  July  16,  1821.  Attended  a  dissertation  of  Emerson's 


54  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

in  the  morning,  on  the  subject  of  ethical  philosophy. 
I  found  it  long  and  dry."  No  doubt  it  was  so  as  com 
pared  with  the  conventional  oratory  of  the  period. 
Josiah  Quincy  had  the  kind  of  oratory  which  could 
make  a  mail  mayor  of  Boston,  and  so  made  him.  But 
Emerson  had  a  new  idea  of  eloquence  and  of  its  aim  ; 
and  it  is  creditable  to  Professor  Charming  that  even  the 
second  prize  could  have  been  awarded  it  sixty  years 
ago.  For  it  is  now  well  known  that  his  style  of  speak 
ing  was  already  of  the  quiet,  self-restrained,  and  simple 
kind,  whose  striking  effects  were  the  result  of  artistic 
touches  rather  than  elaborate  statement  or  highly  col 
oured  illustrations.  Writing  of  his  college  years,  Mr. 
Bancroft  Hill  says  :  "  His  mind  was  unusually  mature 
and  independent.  His  letters  and  conversation  already 
displayed  something  of  originality  ;  and  if  his  two 
Bowdoin  essays  were  published,  I  feel  sure  we  should 
find  in  them  many  characteristic  turns  of  thought  and 
expression."  He  had  an  enthusiastic  admiration  for 
Edward  Everett,  then  just  returned  from  a  European 
tour,  in  which  he  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Scott, 
Byron,  Jeffrey,  Davy,  Romilly,  Mackintosh,  and  had 
prepared  himself  for  his  new  professorship  by  studying 
in  Italy  and  Greece.  His  first  lectures  on  Greek  liter 
ature  and  art  at  Harvard  were  heard  by  Emerson  with 
great  admiration.  Yet  Emerson's  style  of  lecturing  was 
totally  different  from  Everett's  from  the  first.  The  meas 
ured  gesture,  the  deliberate  following  of  classical  models, 
the  never-concealed  art  of  Everett  soon  palled  upon  the 
taste.  In  his  famous  lecture  upon  George  Washington, 
I  remember  his  taking  up  a  glass  of  water,  holding  it  for 
a  moment,  and  dexterously  spilling  some  of  it  as  he 


STUDENT   AND   TEACHER.  55 

spoke  of  Washington's  purity  and  cleanliness  of  soul. 
There  were  no  tricks  of  any  kind  in  Emerson's  dis 
course  ;  he  had  no  gesture  or  manner,  but  depended 
upon  clearness  of  thought  and  simplicity  of  statement. 
He  once  told  me  that  when  he  graduated,  his  ambition 
was  to  be  a  professor  of  rhetoric  and  elocution ;  and 
when  I  smiled  at  this,  thinking  only  of  what  he  had 
actually  become,  maintained  that  it  was  a  great  art. 
He  recalled  Saadi's  gratitude  for  the  one  gift  Allah  had 
given  him  —  "  sweetness  of  speech  "  —  and  thought  that 
many  discords  and  controversies  might  be  avoided  if 
preachers  and  public  speakers  had  adequately  culti 
vated  the  art  of  putting  things  felicitously.  He 
expressed  the  belief  that  an  educated  Boston  congre 
gation —  and  none  could  be  more  conservative  just 
then  —  would  call  to  their  pulpit  and  listen  to  a  really 
eloquent  man  whatever  his  opinions.  "An  atheist?  " 
"  Yes."  But  he  must  not  be  a  pedant ;  he  must  have 
a  genuine  conviction,  and  speak  from  his  own  heart 
and  mind.  "The  North  suffers  in  debate  with  those 
eloquent  Southern  Congressmen  at  Washington  because 
it  has  not  a  senator  or  representative  who  can  speak  as 
well  for  Northern  as  they  for  Southern  principles."  I 
named  several  Northern  men  I  had  heard  at  Washing 
ton,  considered  eloquent,  but  he  said,  "  Yes,  but  they 
speak  too  much  after  the  Southern  style.  The  ade 
quate  answer  must  be  characteristic  of  the  people  it 
comes  from.  I  don't  want  a  man  there  of  the  same 
type,  though  that  is  fit  for  its  place  and  purpose." 
Daniel  Webster  was  dead  when  Emerson  said  this  ; 
Edward  Everett  had  long  been  over-compliant  to  the 
South,  and  his  oratory  had  declined.  Senator  Sumner 


56  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

was  much  esteemed  by  Emerson,  but  was  too  much  of 
an  egoist  to  satisfy  him.  The  men  he  would  have  been 
glad  to  send  to  Washington  were  Garrison  and  Wen- 
dell  Phillips.  Of  Phillips  he  said,  "It  is  one  of  the 
picturesque  incidents  of  the  anti-slavery  effort  that 
such  a  man  as  Wendell  Phillips  should  be  devoting 
himself  to  popular  gatherings  in  Massachusetts,  and 
facing  mobs  with  an  eloquence  that  would  be  admired 
in  any  country.  He  is  an  ornamental  person,  with  a 
culture  and  wealth  that  presuppose  European  society 
and  art  galleries."  Of  Dr.  Charming  he  spoke  with 
warm  admiration.  "  The  charm  of  his  preaching  is  not 
to  be  discovered  by  reading  his  sermons  ;  whenever  he 
spoke  it  seemed  to  an  occasion ;  the  heart  of  his 
audience  rose  to  meet  him ;  here  was  something 
sufficient ;  the  multitude  found  it  good  to  be  there,  and 
went  away  fed,  satisfied." 

Not  his  own  inclination  at  the  time,  but  his  family 
affections,  determined  the  first  step  of  Emerson  after 
graduation.  William  Emerson  had  set  up  a  school  for 
girls  in  Boston,  with  the  view  of  assisting  his  brothers 
through  college.  Ralph  now  went  to  join  him.  lie 
did  not  like  the  work  much,  being  no  doubt  eager  to 
enter  upon  further  studies,  but  his  sympathy  with  young 
people  and  instinct  for  individualisation  made  him  an 
excellent  teacher.  The  severest  discipline  administered 
is  said  to  have  been  sending  a  pupil  now  and  then  to  his 
mother's  room  to  pursue  her  studies.  The  school  was 
near  the  Federal  Street  Church  (Channing's),  and  Em 
erson  witnessed  the  most  striking  example  of  the  power 
possible  to  the  American  pulpit.  It  was  in  the  year  of 
Emerson's  graduation  (1821)  that  the  new  impulse 


STUDENT   AND    TEACHER. 


57 


given  to  the  liberal  tendencies  of  America  began  to  be 
generally  felt.  In  that  year  Channing  gave  his  Dud- 
leian  lecture  at  Cambridge  on  the  "  Evidences  of 
Christianity."  Every  word  spoken  in  that  Boston 
church  was  now  heard  throughout  the  country.  He 
saw  Channing  to  be  a  "  necessary"  person,  as  he  said 
long  afterwards,  one  affirming  the  verdict  of  the  human 
faculties,  and  passing  solemn  sentence  upon  guilty 
dogmas  by  simply  stating  their  offence  against  the 
moral  sentiment. 


58       EMERSON  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 


VI. 

APPROBATION. 

THE  determination  of  his  brother  ^William  not  to 
enter  the  ministry,  which  caused  his  mother  sor 
row,  may  have  inclined  Emerson  to  that  profession,  but 
probably  Dr.  Channing  was  the  determining  influence. 
He  began  the  study  of  theology  when  he  was  twenty 
years  of  age  —  not  entering  Divinity  College,  but 
keeping  abreast  of  its  classes  —  and  after  three  years 
was  "  approbated  to  preach"  by  the  Middlesex  Asso 
ciation  of  Preachers.  Unitarianism  had  no  written 
creed,  but  it  had  certain  forms,  concerning  which 
Emerson  already  had  doubts.  It  looks  as  if  he  had 
not  quite  kept  Lord  Bacon's  prescription  for  health, 
"  Never  to  do  anything  contrary  to  your  genius,"  for 
Emerson  went  South  for  his  health,  and  probably  his 
first  public  sermon  was  given  in  Charleston,  which  then 
had  the  only  Unitarian  pulpit  south  of  the  Potomac. 
In  college  his  room-mate  had  been  a  South  Carolinian 
(John  Gourdin),  and  Emerson  always  had  a  pleasant 
feeling  towards  the  South  ("except  those  bonds"), 
and  in  after  life  would  have  gladly  passed  some  winters 
in  Florida,  where  the  author  of  u Uncle  Tom's  Cabin" 
now  finds  a  congenial  home.  Part  of  that  winter 
(1826-27)  was  indeed  passed  in  beautiful  Florida, 


APPROBATION.  59 

whose  fragrance  is  in  his  early  song,  "  To  Ellen  at  the 
South." 

On  his  return  from  the  South,  in  the  spring  of  1827, 
his  first  sermons  were  given  at  New  Bedford.  The  im 
pression  made  by  Emerson  at  this  time  on  best  persons 
was  remarkable.  His  earliest  sermons  are  almost  for 
gotten  in  the  charm  of  his  personality  and  in  the  warm 
glow  of  his  sympathies,  in  his  das  DamonisJie,  which, 
in  Jknerson,  was  known  in  a  peculiar  joy  felt  in  his 
presence.  In  the  privately  printed  Life  of  the  late 
Mrs.  Lyman  of  Northampton,  written  by  her  daughter, 
Mrs.  Lesley,  there  are  some  pages  that  show  the  young 
preacher's  footprints  already  traceable  in  flowers.  They 
who  know  anything  of  the  late  Mrs.  Lyman  need  not 
be  told  that  one  fourteen  years  her  junior  must  have 
possessed  extraordinary  character  and  powers  to  make 
such  an  impression  upon  her  as  appears  in  this  vol 
ume,  which  my  friend  who  wrote  it  kindly  permits  me 
to  use.  In  the  autumn  of  1827,  Mr.  Hall,  the  minis 
ter  at  Northampton,  being  in  ill  health,  his  pulpit  was 
supplied  by  young  ministers  from  Boston.  "  During 
this  autumn  my  mother  heard  that  Mrs.  Hall  was 
expecting  one  of  the  preachers  to  stay  at  her  house 
for  a  fortnight.  She  did  not  even  know  the  name  of 
the  expected  guest,  but  she  knew  Mrs.  Hall  was  not 
well,  so  she  sent  her  word  that,  when  the  preacher 
came,  she  would  like  to  have  him  transferred  to  her 
house.  It  was  Mr.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  then  a 
young  man,  who  took  up  his  abode  for  a  fortnight 
under  her  friendly  roof.  I  have  no  power  to  convey 
in  words  the  impression  she  used  to  give  me  of  this 
visit,  or  its  effect  upon  her  appreciative  mind.  To 


60  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

her  sister  she  mirthfully  quoted  an  expression  some 
times  used  by  her  orthodox  neighbours  about  certain 
students  at  Amherst,  and  wrote,  "  O  Sally  !  I  thought 
to  entertain  '  a  pious  indigent,'  but  lo  !  an  angel  una 
wares  !  "  Not  long  after  this  visit,  my  brother  Joseph 
became  intimate  with  Charles  Emerson  at  Cambridge, 
a  friendship  which  my  mother  hailed  as  one  of  the 
highest  and  holiest  influences  in  the  life  of  her  beloved 
son.  She  rarely  saw  Mr.  Emerson  in  later  life  ;  a  few 
letters  passed  between  them.  Once  (in  1849)  he  spent 
a  few  days  at  her  house  while  lecturing  in  Northamp 
ton,  and  after  her  removal  to  Cambridge  he  called  to 
see  her.  The  personal  feeling  towards  him  thus  en 
gendered  burned  henceforth  with  a  flame  that  threw 
light  upon  every  passage  of  his  writings,  gilded  the 
gloom  of  many  a  weary  day,  and  made  her  fine  face 
shine  with  responsive  sympathy  for  the  author  as  she 
read  aloud.  She  was  wont  to  feel  a  certain  property 
in  him  and  his  works  ;  and  I  have  seen  her  ready  to 
shed  tears  when  she  could  not  see  any  appreciation  of 
his  thought  in  her  listener.  To  one  I  have  heard  her 

O 

say,  "  Well,  you  call  that  transcendental,  and  that's  all 
you  have  to  say  about  it.  /  call  it  the  profoundest 
common  sense."  To  another,  "You  think  it  very 
arrogant  of  me  to  pretend  to  understand  Mr.  Emer 
son.  Well,  I  tell  you  I  have  the  key  to  him ;  and  I 
am  not  going  to  pretend  I  have  not,  whatever  any  one 
thinks."  And  so  as  the  years  went  by,  and  volume 
•after  volume  appeared  of  the  Essays,  she  hailed  them 
with  delight  and  read  them  till  they  became  part  of 
herself. 

It  is  the  best  benefit  of  searching  into  genealogies 


APPKOBATION.  61 

it  brings  ns  on  so  many  fair  fulfilments  reversing  ill 
omens.  That  beautiful  and  happy  wife  of  Judge  Ly- 
man  was  a  descendant  of  Anne  Hutchinson,  whose 
genius  re-appeared  in  her.  Emerson's  ancestor,  Rev. 
Peter  Bnlkeley,  presided  over  the  Synod  which  ban 
ished  Anne  Hutchinson  to  Rhode  Island  and  to  death. 
Now  these  two  meet  in  near  friendship,  and  in  the 
sorrows  that  were  presently  the  portion  of  Anne 
Lyman  the  word  of  consolation  and  sympathy  from 
Emerson  never  failed. 

The  first  sentences  of  Emerson  which  I  have  read 
are  in  a  letter  written  from  Divinity  Hall,  Cambridge, 
February  11,  1828,  to  Mrs.  Lyman  on  the/death  of  her 
brother-in-law,  Judge  Howe,  resulting  fr^m  devotion  to 
the  duties  of  his  office.  "  In  such  a  dfeath  of  such  a 
man,  if  there  must  be  to  his  family  and  friends  the 
deepest  grief,  there  must  also  be  to  them  a  feeling  of 
deep  and  holy  joy.  There  is  something  in  his  char 
acter  which  seems  to  make  excessive  sorrow  unsea 
sonable  and  unjust  to  his  memory,  and  all  who  have 
heard  of  his  death  have  derived  from  it  new  force  to 
virtue  and  new  confidence  to  faith." 

In  a  letter  dated  "Boston,  August  25,  1829,"  to 
the  same  friend,  he  introduces  Mr.  George  Bradford  : 
"But  who  is  Mr.  Bradford?  He  is  Mrs.  Ripley's 
brother,  and  a  fine  classical  and  Biblical  scholar,  and 
a  botanist,  and  a  lover  of  truth,  and  '  an  Israelite  in 
whom  is  no  guile,'  and  a  kind  of  Cowper,  and  a  great 
admirer  of  all  admirable  things  ;  and  so  I  want  him  to 
go  to  your  house,  where  his  eyes  and  ears  shall  be 
enriched  with  what  he  loves." 

It  is  a  little  droll  to  find  him  in  this  note  speaking  of 


62  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

getting  Mr.  Upham  to  point  him  out  the  lions  on  a 
public  occasion  at  Cambridge.  Speaking  of  some 
pecuniary  losses  sustained  by  their  friends,  Emerson 
says  :  —  "  God  seems  to  make  some  of  his  children  for 
prosperity,  they  bear  it  so  gracefully,  and  with  such 
good-will  of  society ;  and  it  is  always  painful  when 
such  suffer.  But  I  suppose  it  is  always  dangerous, 
and  especially  to  the  very  young.  In  college,  I  used 
to  echo  a  frequent  ejaculation  of  my  wise  aunt's,  '  Oh, 
blessed,  blessed  poverty ! '  when  I  saw  young  men  of 
fine  capabilities,  whose  only  and  fatal  disadvantage 
was  wealth.  It  is  sad  to  see  it  taken  from  those  who 
know  how  to  use  it,  but  children  whose  prospects  are 
changed  may  hereafter  rejoice  at  the  event." 

The  question  of  immortality,  so  anxiously  discussed 
with  Carlyle  at  Craigenputtock,  is  touched  in  a  letter 
to  Mrs.  Lyman,  January  G,  1830,  on  the  death  of  her 
father,  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  "hopes  which  our 
Saviour  has  imparted  to  us."  "Take  away  these 
hopes,  and  death  is  more  ghastly  to  the  soul  than  the 
corpse  to  the  eye.  Receive  them,  and  the  riddle  of  the 
universe  is  explained ;  an  account  given  of  events 
perfectly  consistent  with  what  we  feel  in  ourselves 
when  we  are  best."  Six  years  later,  in  his  first  book, 
Emerson  wrote,  u  Even  the  corpse  has  its  own 
beauty." 

In  a  letter  to  this  lady  on  the  occasion  of  a  heavy 
bereavement,  —  the  death  of  a  lovely  daughter,  —  he 
writes  (1837):  —  "How  gladly  have  I  remembered 
the  glimpses  I  had  of  her  sunny  childhood,  her  winning 
manners,  her  persuading  speech,  that  then  made  her 
father,  I  believe,  call  her  his  '  lawyer.'  In  the  pleasant 


APPROBATION.  63 

weeks  I  spent  at  your  house,  I  rejoiced  iu  the  promise 
of  her  beauty,  and  have  pleased  myself  with  the  hope 
that  she  was  surmounting  her  early  trials,  and  was 
destined  to  be  one  of  those  rare  women  who  exalt 
society,  and  who  make  credible  to  us  a  better  society 
than  is  seen  in  the  earth.  I  still  keep  by  me  one  of  her 
drawings  which  she  gave  me.  I  have  scarcely  seen  her 
face  since.  But  we  feel  a  property  in  all  the  accom 
plishments  and  graces  that  we  know,  which  neither 
distance  nor  absence  destroys.  For  my  part,  I  grudge 
the  decays  of  the  young  and  beautiful  whom  I  may 
never  see  again.  Even  in  their  death,  is  the  reflection 
that  we  are  for  ever  enriched  by  having  beheld  them, 
—  that  we  can  never  be  quite  poor  and  low,  for  they 
have  furnished  our  heart  and  mind  with  new  elements 
of  beauty  and  wisdom. 

"  And  now  she  is  gone  out  of  sight,  I  can  only  offer 
to  you  and  to  Judge  Lyman  my  respectful  and  affec 
tionate  condolence.  I  am  sure  I  need  not  suggest  the 
deep  consolations  of  the  spiritual  life,  for  love  is  the 
first  believer,  and  all  the  remembrances  of  her  life  will 
plead  with  you  in  behalf  of  the  hope  of  all  souls.  How 
do  we  go,  all  of  us,  to  the  world  of  spirits,  marshalled 
and  beckoned  unto  by  noble  and  lovely  friends  !  That 
event  cannot  be  fearful  which  made  a  part  of  the  con 
stitution  and  career  of  beings  so  finely  framed  and 
touched,  and  whose  influence  on  us  has  been  so  benign. 
These  sad  departures  open  to  us,  as  other  events  do 
not,  that  ineradicable  faith  which  the  secret  history  of 
every  year  strips  of  its  obscurities,  — that  we  can  and 
must  exist  for  evermore." 

In  her  extreme  age,  the  lady  to  whom  these  letters 


64  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

were  written  was  visited  by  Emerson  and  one  of  his 
daughters.     It  was  a  great  joy  to  her,  and  she  wrote : 

—  "  Perhaps  I  shall  never  see  Mr.  Emerson  any  more. 
Well,  4 1  saw  his  day  and  was  glad.'  "     To  lead  on  this 
glad  day  which  her  so  distant  daughter  beheld,  —  the 
triumph    of    her   noble   thought   and    spirit,  —  Anne 
Hutchinson  had  lived  and  died. 

But  we  must  return  now  to  the  beginning  of  Emer 
son's  ministerial  career.  After  preaching  at  various 
places,  —  among  others  for  some  Sundays  at  Concord, 

—  and   meanwhile   writing    poetry,    he   was   ordained 
minister  of  the   Second  Church  in  Boston,  March    11, 
1829.     It  was   at  first  as  colleague  of  the  Rev.  Henry 
Ware,  jun.,  but  shortly  after  he  became  sole  pastor  of 
the  church.     Eminent  Unitarian  ministers  participated 
in  the  ordination  services,   and   Emerson  received   a 
hearty  welcome.     In  September  of  the  same  year  he 
was  married  to  Ellen  Louisa  Tucker.     He  was  at  once 
accorded  in    Boston    the    highest    position,    and    was 
listened  to  with  admiration  in  the  church  of  Channing. 
A  venerable  minister  gave  me  an  account  of  a  sermon 
he  heard  from  Emerson  in  those  days,  impressed  on  his 
memory  by  the  vitality  it  infused  in  an  old  theme,  and 
the  simplicity  with  which  it  was  delivered.     The  text 
was,  "What  is  a  man  profited  if  he  shall  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soul?"     The  emphasis 
was  on  the  word   "  own,"  and  the  general  theme  was 
that  to  every  man   the  great  end  of  existence  was  the 
preservation  and  culture  of  his  individual  mind  and 
character.     Each  man  must  be  saved  by  his  own  inward 
redeemer  ;  and  the  whole  world  is  for  each  but  a  plastic 
material  through  which  the  individual  spirit  is  to  realise 


APPROBATION.  65 

itself.  Aspiration  and  thought  become  clear  and  real 
only  "by  action  and  life.  If  knowledge  leads  not  to 
action,  it  passes  awa}r,  being  preserved  only  on  the 
condition  of  being  used.  "The  last  thing,"  added 
rny  informant,  "  that  any  of  us  who  heard  him  would 
have  predicted  of  the  youth,  whose  quiet  simplicity 
and  piety  captivated  all,  was  that  he  would  become  the 
religious  revolutionist  of  America." 

I  once  asked  Emerson  about  his  sermons,  and  he  told 
me  he  had  utilised  them  in  his  Essays,  these  being, 
however,  less  ethical  in  form.  In  a  pulpit  address 
delivered  in  1830  at  Concord,  occur  characteristic 
words  of  Emerson.  It  was  at  the  ordination  of  a 
new  minister  there.  Having  recalled  the  phrase,  "  Be 
of  one  mind,"  he  said:  "Thousands  of  hearts  have 
heard  the  commandment,  and  anon  with  joy  receive  it. 
All  men  on  whose  souls  the  light  of  God's  revelation 
truly  shineth,  with  whatever  apparent  differences,  are 
substantially  of  one  mind,  work  together,  whether  con 
sciously  or  not,  for  one  and  the  same  good.  Faces  that 
never  beheld  each  other  are  lighted  up  by  it  with  the 
same  expression.  Hands  that  were  never  clasped  t:>il 
unceasingly  at  the  same  work.  This  it  is  which  make  s 
the  omnipotence  of  truth  in  the  keeping  of  feeble  men, 
this  fellowship  in  all  its  servants,  this  swift  consenting 
acknowledgment  with  which  they  hail  it  when  it  appears 
God's  truth  ;  it  is  that  electric  spark  which  flies  instan 
taneously  through  the  countless  bands  that  compose 
the  chain.  Truth,  not  like  each  form  of  error,  depend 
ing  for  its  repute  on  the  powers  and  influence  of  here 
and  there  a  solitary  mind  that  espouses  it,  combines 


G6  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

hosts  for  its  support,  and  makes  them  co-operate  across 
mountains,  yea,  and  ages  of  time." 

Emerson  took  an  active  interest  in  the  public  affairs 
of  Boston.  He  was  on  its  School  Board,  and  was 
chosen  chaplain  of  the  State  Senate.  He  invited  the 
anti-slavery  lecturers  into  his  church,  and  helped  phi 
lanthropists  of  other  denominations  in  their  work. 
Father  Taylor,  to  whom  Dickens  gave  an  English 
fame,  found  in  him  his  most  important  supporter  when 
establishing  the  Seaman's  Mission  in  Boston.  This 
was  told  me  by  Father  Taylor  himself  in  his  old  age. 
I  happened  to  be  in  his  company  once  when  he  spoke 
rather  sternly  about  my  leaving  the  Methodist  Church, 
but  when  I  spoke  of  the  part  Emerson  had  in  it,  he 
softened  at  once,  and  spoke  with  emotion  of  his  great 
friend.  I  have  no  doubt  that  if  the  good  Father  of 
Boston  Seamen  was  proud  of  any  personal  thing,  it 
was  of  the  excellent  answer  he  is  said  to  have  given  to 
some  Methodists  who  objected  to  his  friendship  for 
Emerson.  Being  a  Unitarian,  they  insisted  that  he 
must  go  to  hell.  "  It  does  look  so,"  said  Father 
Taylor  ;  "  but  I  am  sure  of  one  thing,  if  Emerson  goes 
to  hell  he  will  change  the  climate  there,  and  emigration 
will  so*  that  way." 


DISAPPROBATION.  67 


VII. 

DISAPPROBATION. 

IN  June,  1832,  Emerson  invited  the  most  active 
members  of  his  church  to  his  house,  "  to  receive  a 
communication  from  him  in  relation  to  the  views  at 
which  he  had  arrived  respecting  the  ordinance  of  the 
Lord's  Supper."  He  there  made  his  statement  of  ob 
jections  to  the  existing  form,  and  proposed  to  "so  far 
change  the  manner  of  administering  the  rite  as  to  dis 
use  the  elements  and  relinquish  the  claim  of  authority." 
He  suggested  a  modification.  After  hearing  this  com 
munication  a  committee  was  appointed  (Deacons  Mack 
intosh  and  Patterson,  Dr.  John  Ware,  George  B. 
Emerson,  George  A.  Sampson,  Gedney  King,  and 
Samuel  Beal)  to  consider  the  subject.  They  reported 
and  submitted:  "(1.)  That  in  the  opinion  of  this 
church,  after  a  careful  consideration  of  this  subject,  it 
is  expedient  to  maintain  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  in  the  present  form.  (2.)  That  the  brethren 
of  this  church  retain  an  undiminished  regard  for  their 
pastor,  and  entertain  the  hope  that  he  will  find  it  con 
sistent  with  his  sense  of  duty  to  continue  the  customary 
administration  of  the  Supper."  The  minister,  however, 
having  given  an  explanatory  sermon  on  the  subject, 
offered  a  kindly  but  firm  resignation  of  his  charge. 


68       EMERSON  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 

Jt  is  significant  that  the  only  sermon  by  Emerson 
ever  published  was  this  of  September  9,  18;52,  in  which 
lie  announced  his  resignation  of  his  pulpit  and  assigned 
his  reasons  for  it.  It  is  given  in  full  in  O.  li.  Froth- 
ingham's  "  Transcendentalism  in  New  England." 
Reading  it,  one  cannot  but  wonder  that  the  Unitarians 
should  have  let  go  such  a  preacher.  The  text  was 
Romans  xiv.  17,  u  The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  meat 
and  drink,  but  righteousness,  and  peace,  and  joy  in  the 
Holy  Ghost."  The  history  of  controversies  on  the 
subject  is  condensed  in  a  page,  yet  in  a  way  which 
shows  that  every  phase  of  it  had  been  carefully  studied, 
up  to  the  time  when  "  the  Society  of  Quakers  denied 
the  authority  of  the  rite  altogether,  and  gave  good 
reasons  for  disusing  it."  Next  are  given  his  reasons 
for  believing  that  Jesus  did  not  intend  to  establish  an 
institution  for  perpetual  observance  when  he  ate  the 
Passover  with  his  disciples.  The  only  reporter  of  the 
incident  whose  words,  "This  do  in  remembrance  of 
me,"  would  bear  a  different  construction,  was  Luke, 
who  was  not  present.  But  what  did  this  expression 
really  signify?  "  It  is  a  prophetic  and  an  affectionate 
expression.  Jesus  is  a  Jew,  sitting  with  his  country 
men,  celebrating  their  national  feast.  He  thinks  of  his 
own  impending  death,  and  wishes  the  minds  of  his  dis 
ciples  to  be  prepared  for  it.  '  When  hereafter,'  he  says 
to  them,  '  you  shall  keep  the  Passover,  it  will  have  an 
altered  aspect  to  your  eyes.  It  is  now  a  historical  cov 
enant  of  God  with  the  Jewish  nation.  Hereafter  it  will 
remind  you  of  a  new  covenant  sealed  with  my  blood. 
In  years  to  come,  as  long  as  your  people  shall  come  up 
to  Jerusalem  to  keep  this  feast,  the  connection  which 


DISAPPROBATION.  69 

has  subsisted  between  us  will  give  a  new  meaning  in 
your  eyes  to  the  national  festival,  as  the  anniversary 
of  my  death.'  I  see  natural  feeling  and  beauty  in  the 
use  of  such  language  from  Jesus,  a  friend  to  his  friends. 
I  can  readily  imagine  that  he  was  willing  and  desirous, 
when  his  disciples  met,  his  memory  should  hallow  their 
intercourse  ;  but  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  believe  that 
in  the  use  of  such  an  expression  he  looked  beyond  the 
living  generation,  beyond  the  abolition  of  the  festival 
he  was  celebrating  and  the  scattering  of  the  nation, 
and  meant  to  impose  a  memorial  feast  upon  the  whole 
world."  Then  follows  a  statement  of  the  Eastern  way 
of  teaching,  the  readiness  of  Jesus  to  spiritualise  every 
occurrence  —  as  in  washing  his  disciples'  feet,  more 
emphatically  enjoined  as  an  example  than  any  sacra 
ment.  The  communism  of  the  first  disciples,  which 
rendered  such  a  festival  natural ;  the  expectation  of 
the  second  coming  of  Jesus,  which  influenced  the  mind 
of  Paul  to  preserve  the  local  rite,  were  considered  with 
great  force,  and  led  up  to  the  general  view.  As  to  the 
question  of  expediency,  he  thinks  the  ordinance  pro 
duces  confusion  in  our  views  of  the  relation  of  the  soul 
to  God.  "For  the  service  does  not  stand  upon  the 
basis  of  a  voluntary  act,  but  is  imposed  by  authority." 
"The  use  of  the  elements,  however  suitable  to  the 
people  and  modes  of  thought  in  the  East,  where  it 
originated,  is  foreign  and  unsuited  to  affect  us."  This 
alone  is  a  sufficient  objection  to  the  ordinance.  "  It  is 
my  own  objection.  This  mode  of  commemorating  Christ 
is  not  suitable  to  me.  That  is  reason  enough  why  I 
should  abandon  it.  If  I  believed  that  it  was  enjoined 
by  Jesus  on  his  disciples,  and  that  he  even  contemplated 


70       EMERSON  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 

making  permanent  this  mode  of  commemoration,  every 
way  agreeable  to  an  Eastern  mind,  and  yet,  on  trial, 
it  was  disagreeable  to  my  own  feelings,  I  should  not 
adopt  it.  I  should  choose  other  ways  which,  as  more 
effectual  upon  me,  he  would  approve  more.  For  I 
choose  that  my  remembrances  of  him  should  be  pleas 
ing,  affecting,  religious.  I  will  love  him  as  a  glorious 
friend,  after  the  free  way  of  friendship,  and  not  pay 
him  a  stilf  sign  of  respect,  as  men  do  to  those  whom 
they  fear.  A  passage  read  from  his  discourses,  a 
moving  provocation  to  works  like  his,  any  act  or 
meeting  which  tends  to  awaken  a  pure  thought,  a  flow 
of  love,  an  original  design  of  virtue,  I  call  a  true,  a 
worthy  commemoration."  Freedom,  he  declares,  is  the 
essence  of  this  faith.  "  It  has  for  its  object  simply  to 
make  men  good  and  wise.  Its  institutions,  then,  should 
be  as  flexible  as  the  wants  of  men.  That  form  out  of 
which  the  life  and  suitableness  have  departed  should 
be  as  worthless  in  its  eyes  as  the  dead  leaves  that  are 
falling  around  us."  "Although  I  have  gone  back  to 
wreigh  the  expressions  of  Paul,  I  feel  that  here  is  the 
true  point  of  view.  In  the  midst  of  considerations  as 
to  what  Paul  thought,  and  why  he  so  thought,  I  cannot 
help  feeling  that  it  is  time  misspent  to  argue  to  or  from 
his  convictions,  or  those  of  Luke  and  John,  respecting 
any  form.  I  seem  to  lose  the  substance  in  seeking  the 
shadow.  That  for  which  Paul  lived  and  died  so  glo 
riously  ;  that  for  which  Jesus  gave  himself  to  be  cru 
cified  ;  the  end  that  animated  the  thousand  martyrs  and 
heroes  who  have  followed  his  steps,  was  to  redeem  us 
from  a  formal  religion,  and  teach  us  to  seek  our  well- 
being  in  the  formation  of  the  soul.  The  whole  world 


DISAPPROBATION .  7 1 

was  full  of  idols  and  ordinances.  The  Jewish  was  a 
religion  of  forms.  The  Pagan  was  a  religion  of  forms  ; 
it  was  all  body  —  it  had  no  life  ;  and  the  Almighty  God 
was  pleased  to  qualify  and  send  forth  a  man  to  teach  men 
that  they  must  serve  him  with  the  heart ;  that  only  that 
life  was  religious  which  was  thoroughly  good  ;  that  sac 
rifice  was  smoke,  and  forms  were  shadows.  This  man 
lived  and  died  true  to  this  purpose  ;  and  now  with  his 
blessed  word  and  life  before  us,  Christians  must  con 
tend  that  it  is  a  matter  of  vital  importance,  really  a 
duty,  to  commemorate  him  by  a  certain  form,  whether 
that  form  be  agreeable  to  their  understandings  or  not. 
Is  not  this  to  make  vain  the  gift  of  God?  Is  not  this 
to  turn  back  the  hand  on  the  dial  ? " 

In  conclusion  Emerson  said:  "My  brethren  have 
considered  my  views  with  patience  and  candour,  and 
have  recommended  unanimously  an  adherence  to  the 
present  form.  I  have,  therefore,  been  compelled  to 
consider  whether  it  becomes  me  to  administer  it.  I 
am  clearly  of  opinion  I  ought  not.  This  discourse  has 
already  been  so  far  extended,  that  I  can  only  say  that 
the  reason  of  my  determination  is  shortly  this  :  It  is 
my  desire,  in  the  office  of  a  Christian  minister,  to  do 
nothing  which  I  cannot  do  with  my  whole  heart.  Hav 
ing  said  this,  I  have  said  all.  I  have  no  hostility  to 
this  institution  ;  I  am  only  stating  my  want  of  sym 
pathy  with  it.  Neither  should  I  ever  have  obtruded 
my  opinion  upon  other  people  had  I  not  been  called  by 
my  office  to  administer  it.  That  is  the  end  of  my 
opposition,  that  I  am  not  interested  in  it.  I  am  content 
that  it  stand  to  the  end  of  the  world,  if  it  please  men 
and  please  Heaven,  and  I  shall  rejoice  in  all  the  good  it 
produces. 


72      EMERSON  AT  HOME  AXD  ABROAD. 

"As  it  is  the  prevailing  opinion  and  feeling  in  our 
religious  community  that  it  is  an  indispensable  part  of 
the  pastoral  oflice  to  administer  this  ordinance,  I  am 
about  to  resign  into  your  hands  that  office  which  you 
have  confided  to  me.  It  has  many  duties  for  which  I 
am  feebly  qualified.  It  has  some  which  it  will  always 
be  my  delight  to  discharge,  according  to  my  ability, 
wherever  I  exist.  And  wrhilst  the  recollection  of  its 
claims  oppresses  me  with  a  sense  of  my  unworthiness, 
I  am  consoled  by  the  hope  that  no  time  and  no  change 
can  deprive  me  of  the  satisfaction  of  pursuing  and 
exercising  its  highest  functions." 

Bishop  Iluntington,  once  a  Unitarian  preacher  in 
Boston,  recently  said  that  "  to  a  degree  Mr.  Emerson's 
aberrations  in  religious  thought  were  due  to  his  inapti 
tude  for  think'ing  consecutively  and  logically  on  tin}* 
abstract  subject."  Dr.  Huntington  has  too  readily 
taken  at  the  foot  of  the  letter  Emerson's  casual  talk  of 
the  same  kind  about  himself.  The  sermon  from  which 
I  have  quoted  is  an  admirable  piece  of  methodical  work 
throughout,  and  of  consecutive  logical  reasoning. 
When  Emerson  had  a  practical  purpose  in  view,  as  in 
this  sermon  and  in  several  of  his  essays  during  the 
war,  he  proved  himself  amply  able  to  follow  the  logical 
method.  That  he  did  not  ordinarily  do  so  was  because 
he  was  more  interested  in  points  not  to  be  so  carried. 

Although  Emerson's  congregation  were  loth  to  part 
with  a  man  who  had  reflected  such  honour  upon  them, 
and  showed  in  various  ways  their  continued  love  for 
him,  the  Unitarian  community  outside  acted  far  less 
creditably.  Among  his  wrarmest  friends  was  the 
Methodist,  Father  Taylor,  who  bravery  said,  "  Mr. 


DISAPPROBATION.  73 

Emerson  may  think  this  or  that,  but  he  is  more  like 
Jesus  Christ  than  any  one  I  have  ever  known.  I  have 
seen  him  when  his  religion  was  tested,  and  it  bore  the 
test."  The  report  w^as  circulated  among  the  Unitarians 
and  believed  that  Emerson  was  insane  !  The  extent 
to  which  Unitarian  churches  in  Boston  have  discon 
tinued  the  Eucharist,  and  the  recent  encomiums  on 
Emerson  delivered  in  them,  warrant  the  hope  that, 
some  day,  the  Unitarians  will  adopt  the  rule  of  making 
an  annual  pilgrimage  to  the  grave  at  Concord,  in  re 
membrance  that  when  the  intellectual  flower  of  the 
New  World  rose  before  them,  some  cried,  "  Infidel !  " 
and  others  "  Madman  !" 

But  the  impression  made  by  Emerson's  brief  ministry 
in  Boston  was  lasting.  From  that  day  to  this  there 
have  been  men  and  women,  well  known  for  their  lead 
ing  part  in  all  high  works  and  movements,  whose  lives 
and  characters  were  mainly  influenced  by  his  sermons. 


74  EMERSON    AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 


VIII. 
A  SEA-CHANGE. 

MERSON'S  nerves  were  a  good  deal  strained  by 
the  trouble  with  his  church.  He  had  already 
formed  friendships,  in  his  high  way,  with  individual 
hearts  and  minds  in  his  congregation  ;  and  though  his 
spiritual  sword,  with  the  fine  edge  of  ^l^din's,  was 
able  to  cut  even  the  silken  thread  of  •Ration  if  it 
withheld  him  from  his  aim,  it  was  not  without  the 
laceration  of  his  sensibility  in  all  such  relations.  His 
mother  had  received  another  blow  to  her  hopes  con 
cerning  her  sons.  William  had  abandoned  the  minis 
try  because  of  sceptical  opinions  ;  Edward  had  been 
compelled  to  give  up  the  law  and  go  south  on  the 
vo3Tage  from  which  he  never  returned  •,  and  now  Ralph 
Waldo  was  severed  from  the  traditional  profession  of 
the  family.  All  this  Emerson  felt  deeply.  There  had 
also  come  upon  him  a  heavy  bereavement.  In  the 
February  of  1832,  a  few  months  before  the  difficulty 
with  his  church,  his  young  wife  had  died  of  consump 
tion.  Under  these  troubles,  and  the  sharp  words  of 
his  disappointed  fellow-ministers,  his  health  suffered, 
and  he  resolved  on  an  excursion  to  Europe.  He  had 
an  ardent  desire  to  converse  with  the  English  authors 
who  had  become  important  to  him,  especially  Carlyle, 


A    SEA-CHANGE.  75 

Coleridge,  Landor,  and  Wordsworth.  Above  all,  he 
wished  Carlyle  to  know  that  his  voice  had  been  heard 
in  New  England,  and  to  bear  him  a  prophecy  of  the 
response  that  awaited  him.  Early  in  the  spring  of 
1833  he  sailed  for  Europe,  and  though  he  was  at  home 
again  by  the  close  of  August,  he  had  visited  Sicily,  / 
Italy,  France,  and  England.  He  visited  Landor  in 
Florence.  With  reference  to  Emerson's  visits  to  Car- 
lyle  and  Wordsworth  at  that  time,  he  wrote  at  once  to 
Alexander  Ireland,  whose  acquaintance  he  had  made 
in  Edinburgh,  and  whose  friendship  was  of  much  value 
to  him.  A  very  interesting  account  of  this  visit  to 
Edinburgh,  and  of  the  impression  made  on  him  by 
Emerson's  sermon  in  that  city,  is  given  in  Mr.  Ireland's 
memorial  of  his  friend.  I  was  indebted  to  Mr.  Ireland 
for  Emerson's  letter  to  him,  which  appears  in  my  book 
on  Carlyle,  and  from  which  extracts  may  be  made 
here. 

"  The  comfort  of  meeting  a  man  of  genius  is  that 
he  speaks  sincerely  ;  that  he  feels  himself  to  be  so 
rich,  that  he  is  above  the  meanness  of  pretending  to 
knowledge  which  he  has  not,  and  Cartyle  does  not  pre 
tend  to  have  solved  the  great  problems,  but  rather 
to  be  an  observer  of  their  solution  as  it  goes  forward  in 
the  world.  .  .  .  My  own  feeling  was  that  I  had  met 
with  men  of  far  less  power  who  had  yet  greater  insight 
into  religious  truth.  He  is,  as  3^011  might  guess  from 
his  papers,  the  most  catholic  of  philosophers  ;  he  for 
gives  and  loves  everybody,  and  wishes  each  to  struggle 
on  in  his  own  place  and  arrive  at  his  own  ends.  But 
his  respect  for  eminent  men,  or  rather  his  scale  of 
eminence,  is  about  the  reverse  of  the  popular  scale. 


76  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

Scott,  Mackintosh.  Jeffrey,  Gibbon,  even  Bacon,  are 
no  heroes  of  his ;  stranger  yet,  he  hardly  admires 
Socrates,  the  glory  of  the  Greek  world  ;  but  Burns,  and 
Samuel  Johnson,  and  Mirabeau,  he  said  interested  him, 
and  I  suppose  whoever  else  has  given  himself  with  all 
his  heart  to  a  leading  instinct,  and  has  not  calculated  too 
much.  But  I  cannot  think  of  sketching  even  his 
opinions,  or  repeating  his  conversations  here.  I  will 
cheerfully  do  it  when  you  visit  me  in  America.  He 
talks  finely,  seems  to  love  the  broad  Scotch,  and  I 
loved  him  very  much  at  once.  ...  I  could  not  help 
congratulating  him  upon  his  treasure  in  his  wife,  and  I 
hope  he  will  not  leave  the  moors ;  'tis  so  much  better 
for  a  man  of  letters  to  nurse  himself  in  seclusion  than 
to  be  filed  down  to  the  common  level  by  the  compliances 
and  imitations  of  city  society. " 

Emerson  called  on  Wordsworth  at  Rydal  Mount,  and 
was  cordially  received,  the  poet  remembering  up  all 
his  American  acquaintance.  "He  had  very  much  to 
say  about  the  evils  of  superficial  education,  both  in 
this  country  and  in  mine.  He  thinks  that  the  intel 
lectual  tuition  of  society  is  going  on  out  of  all  pro 
portion  faster  than  its  moral  training,  which  last  is 
essential  to  all  education.  He  does  not  wish  to  hear 
of  schools  of  tuition ;  it  is  the  education  of  circum 
stances  which  he  values,  and  much  more  to  this 
point.  .  .  .  He  led  me  out  into  a  walk  in  his  grounds, 
where  he  said  many  thousands  of  his  lines  were  com 
posed,  and  repeated  to  me  three  beautiful  sonnets, 
which  he  had  just  finished,  upon  the  occasion  of  his 
recent  visit  to  Fingal's  Cave  at  Staffa.  I  hope  he  will 
print  them  speedily.  The  third  is  a  gem.  He  was  80 


A   SEA-CHANGE.  77 

benevolently  anxious  to  impress  upon  me  my  social 
duties  as  an  American  citizen,  that  he  accompanied 
me  near  a  mile  from  his  house,  talking  vehemently, 
and  ever  and  anon  stopping  short  to  imprint  his  words. 
I  noted  down  some  of  these  when  I  got  to  my  inn,  and 
you  may  see  them  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  when  you 
will.  I  enjoyed  my  visits  greatly,  and  shall  always 
esteem  your  Britain  very  highly  in  love  for  its  wise 
and  good  men's  sake.  I  remember  with  much  pleasure 
my  visit  to  Edinburgh,  and  your  good  parents.  .  .  . 
It  will  give  me  very  great  pleasure  to  hear  from  you, 
to  know  your  thoughts.  Every  man  that  ever  was 
born  has  some  that  are  peculiar." 

Caiiyle's  tones  were  tenderer  even  than  his  words 
when,  in  the  evening  after  his  inauguration  as  Lord 
Rector  at  Edinburgh,  he  told  me  of  this  visit.  "He 
came  from  Dumfries  in  an  old  rusty  gig ;  came  one 
day  and  vanished  the  next.  I  had  never  heard  of  him  : 
he  gave  us  his  brief  biography.  We  took  a  walk  while 
dinner  was  prepared.  We  gave  him  welcome ;  we 
were  glad  to  see  him.  I  did  not  then  adequately 
recognise  Emerson's  genius  ;  but  she  and  I  thought 
him  a  beautiful  transparent  soul,  and  he  was  always  a 
very  pleasant  object  to  us  in  the  distance.  Now  and 
then  a  letter  still  comes  from  him,  and  amid  the  smoke 
and  mist  of  the  world  it  is  always  as  a  window  flung 
open  to  the  azure." 

Emerson's  hopes  in  this  pilgrimage  were  too  high  to 
be  realised.  Though  eight  years  younger  than  Carlyle, 
he  was  really  older.  The  hermit  of  Craigenputtock 
was  still  at  heart  involved  in  beliefs  that  Emerson's 
fathers  had  outgrown  for  him  before  he  was  born,  and 


78  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

he  was  mourning  over  ruins  which  did  not  exist  in  the 
landscape  of  the  New  World.  Then,  and  for  many 
years  after,  Emerson  urged  Carlyle  to  settle  in  the 
New  England  his  genius  implied. 

"  A  thousand  years  a  poor  man  sat 
Before  the  gate  of  Paradise ; 
Then,  while  he  snatehed  one  little  nap, 
It  oped  and  shut.    Ah !  was  he  wise?  " 

It  is  a  fable  that  on  the  evening  of  their  meeting 
Carlyle  gave  Emerson  a  pipe  and  took  one  himself, 
and  that  the  two  sat  together  in  perfect  silence  until 
bedtime,  when  they  shook  hands  and  congratulated 
each  other  on  the  charming  evening  they  had  enjoyed. 
The  conversation  was  fluent  enough  that  evening  and 
the  next  day,  but  in  the  silence  that  followed  their 
parting,  one  of  them  had  discovered  that  the  light  he 
had  sought  so  far  had  not  been  imparted. 

The  little  story,  which  Carlyle  allowed  me  to  set 
afloat  years  ago,  of  how,  when  the  first  pages  of 
"Sartor"  appeared,  the  general  clamour  of  "Eraser's" 
readers  against  it  was  broken  by  but  two  voices  —  "an 
Irish  Catholic  priest  and  a  Mr.  Emerson  of  Concord  " 

—  suggests   the  vaguely  contrary  elements,  combined 
from  the  first  in  that  pillar  of  cloud  and  fire  which  rose 
amid  the  Scottish  moors.     Emerson  was  the  first  to 
recognise  the  sign  of  a  new  exodus,  but  he  presently 
perceived  that  Carlyle  had  his  eyes  fixed  on  Germany 

—  on  the  Old  and  not  the  New  World.     They  must 
part.     But  the  American  had  found  Carlyle  a  grand 
figure,  and  loved  him.  %  From  the  time  (183G)  when  he 


A   SEA-CHANGE.  79 

introduced  "  Sartor"  into  America,  where,  I  believe, 
its  sale  rose  over  a  thousand  before  its  publication  as 
a  volume  in  England,  Emerson's  chief  work  was  to 
attend  to  Carlyle's  business.  He  was  perpetually 
among  the  booksellers  when  he  had  no  book  of  his  own 
to  sell,  and  was  visible  among  foreign  exchangers  often 
enough  for  his  head  to  appear  to  Lowell,  the  fabulist 
of  the  time,  with  "  Olympus  for  one  pole,  and  for 
t'other  the  Exchange."  For  every  work  of  Carlyle's, 
certainly  during  a  period  of  twenty  years,  Emerson  did 
far  more  work  than  for  his  own.  Carlyle  had  reason 
to  say,  as  he  once  did,  that  there  was  something  ma 
ternal  in  the  way  New  England  took  him  up,  but  the 
paternal  part  was  Emerson's.  His  friends  were  also 
Carlyle's  friends  ;  and,  among  these,  Le  Baron  Russell 
was  chiefly  instrumental  in  publishing,  and  securing 
subscriptions  for,  "  Sartor,"  of  which  he  appears  as 
co-editor.  He  was  assisted  by  the  Rev.  William  Sils- 
bee. 

The  personal  love  between  Carlyle  and  Emerson 
was  deep ;  it  survived  all  its  trials,  and  the  wide 
differences  of  opinion  on  nearly  every  subject.  When 
I  was  starting  for  America  in  1880,  Carlyle  said, 
"  Give  my  love  to  Emerson.  I  still  think  of  his  visit 
to  us  at  Craigenputtock  as  the  most  beautiful  thing  in 
our  experience  there."  When  I  met  Emerson  in  that 
year,  his  memory  was  nearly  gone  but  the  one  name 
that  required  no  suggestion  was  that  of  Carlyle.  Out 
of  the  far  past  this  arose  clearly  enough,  and  when 
he  received  the  message  I  brought,  his  face  beamed 
with  the  old  intelligence. 


80       EMERSON  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 

During  the  dismal  discussion  which  has  gone  on 
over  the  grave  of  Carlyle,  I  heard  from  a  friend  a 
word  spoken  by  Emerson  which  sends  a  sunbeam 
through  it  all.  Just  after  he  had  visited  Craigen- 
puttock,  a  friend  asked  him  how  he  liked  Carlyle. 
His  whole  reply  was,  "  A  marvellous  child ! " 


A   LEGEND    OF   GOOD    WOMEN.  81 


IX. 

A  LEGEND  OF  GOOD  WOMEN. 

EVERYBODY  has  been  wrong  in  his  guess,  except 
good  women,  who  never  despair  of  an  ideal  right." 
These  are  words  from  a  letter  written  by  Emerson  to 
Carlyle  about  the  American  civil  war.  They  are  preg 
nant  with  a  great  deal  of  experience.  No  man  had 
more  reason  for  his  faith  in  "  the  moral  genius  of 
women  "  —  how  well  I  remember  the  solemnity  of  his 
voice  in  that  phrase  !  —  than  Emerson.  Something  of 
that,  indeed,  has  been  told  in  a  previous  chapter,  but 
more  remains,  and  this  fine  influence  will  be  found 
shedding  its  light  upon  the  path  of  Emerson  even  to 
the  grave. 

The  first  teachers  of  Transcendentalism  in  New 
England  were  Anne  Hutchinson  and  Mary  Dyer  (more 
than  eight  generations  ago  !).  The  one  was  its  proph 
etess,  the  other  its  protomartyr.  They  were  beautiful 
and  refined,  true  ladies,  of  good  education.  Anne 
Hutchinson  was  a  woman  of  genius,  however  apolo 
gists  of  Puritanism  may  call  it  fanaticism.  Governor 
Harry  Vane  was  not  far  wrong  in  regarding  her  as 
a  prophetess ;  for  with  her  ' '  profitable  and  sober 
carriage,"  which  her  opponents  admitted,  she  united 
a  far-reaching  spiritual  instinct,  a  clear  logical  Intel- 


82  EMERSOX    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

lect,  and  the  eloquence  of  simple  and  sweet  speech. 
She  had  but  one  religious  principle,  the  indwelling 
Spirit,  setting  free  the  individual  from  all  rites  and 
formulas,  and  superior  to  all  scriptures.  She  spoke 
of  the  inner  immediate  revelation,  but  was  careful  to 
guard  this  against  any  fanatical  notion  of  its  being 
miraculous.  This  she  pronounced  a  delusion.  It  was 
really  a  more  cultured  form  of  Quakerism,  and  the 
best  Quakers  became  identified  with  it.  Among  these 
was  Mary  Dyer.  In  1638,  when  Anne  Hutchinson 
was  banished  from  the  Massachusetts  colony,  Mary 
Dyer  shared  her  exile  in  Rhode  Island,  but  there  could 
not  rest.  She  returned  to  preach  in  Boston,  was  twice 
sentenced  to  death  and  reprieved, —  the  second  time 
when  her  three  male  Quaker  comrades  had  been  exe 
cuted  beside  her,  and  the  rope  was  around  her  neck,  — 
but  on  her  third  return  suffered  death. 

Peter  Bulkeley,  as  we  have  seen,  presided  at  the 
Synod  which  banished  Anne  Ilutchinson.  It  is  now 
visible  as  Bulkeley  banishing  Emerson.  It  is  satis 
factory,  however,  to  know  that  the  founder  of  Concord 
died  the  year  before  the  execution  of  Mary  Dyer. 

Time  brought  on  its  picturesque  revenge.  Anne 
Hutchinson,  with  her  band  of  exiles,  settled  near  what 
is  now  the  beautiful  town  of  Newport.  She  shares 
with  Roger  Williams  the  glory  of  having  founded  the 
first  State  on  the  planet  organised  on  the  principles  of 
entire  religious  liberty.  "  It  was  further  ordered  that 
none  be  accounted  a  delinquent  for  doctrine."  So 
runs  (anno  1638)  the  constitution  of  Anne  Hutchin- 
son's  "  democracie "  of  Aquetnet  Island,  which  she 
and  her  friends  bought  from  the  Indians,  the  signet 


A   LEGEND    OF    GOOD    WOMEN.  83 

of  the  State  being  a  sheaf  of  arrows  with  the  motto, 
Amor  vincet  omnia.  This  fair  future  for  love  seemed 
presently  overcast  when  the  Puritans  pursued  her  in 
her  retreat.  "  Her  powerful  mind  still  continued  its 
activity,"  writes  Bancroft;  "young  men  from  the 
colonies  became  converts  to  her  opinions ;  and  she 
excited  such  admiration,  that  to  the  leaders  in  Mas 
sachusetts  it  gave  cause  of  suspicion  and  witchcraft." 
Among  the  red  men  of  Naragansett  she  had  found 
peace  and  safety ;  but  the  Puritans  could  not  endure 
even  the  proximity  of  a  colony  so  liberal,  and  Anne, 
with  her  friends,  had  to  move  away  into  Connecticut, 
where  the  Indians  confused  them  with  their  Dutch 
oppressors,  and  slew  them. 

When  the  Quakers  came  back  into  Massachusetts,  it 
was  with  these  great  witnesses  from  the  past  around 
them.  Among  their  settlements  there  was  a  flourish 
ing  one  at  New  Bedford.  At  that  place  Emerson  first 
began  to  preach  in  the  North.  He  found  the  Quakers 
there  in  commotion.  English  Quakers,  moved  by 
well-grounded  apprehensions  that  the  Amerian  soci 
eties  were  departing  from  orthodoxy,  had  visited  the 
United  States.  Wherever  they  preached,  there  rose 
up  before  them  Elias  Hicks  —  one  of  the  great  men 
whose  story  remains  to  be  truly  told  —  to  confront 
their  dogmas.  In  1827  the  Societies  of  Friends 
throughout  the  country  were  divided  into  "  Ortho 
dox "  and  "  Hicksite  ;  "  and  when  Emerson,  in  the 
same  year,  preached  at  New  Bedford,  the  controversy 
was  at  its  height.  He  there  made  the  acquaintance 
of  Quakers,  and  his  attention  may  here  have  been 
drawn  to  the  sacramental  forms  they  rejected,  and 


84  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

to  the  simplicity  of  their  doctrine,  the  inner  light. 
Their  view  he  adopted ;  it  was  on  this  that  he  sepa 
rated  from  his  church,  and  in  the  end  abandoned  the 
ministry.  The  Quaker  poet,  Whittier,  recently  wrote 
of  the  reverence  with  which  he  regarded  the  beautiful 
Boston  Common,  "  knowing  that  hidden  somewhere 
under  its  green  turf  are  -the  graves  of  the  Quaker 
martyrs."  But  he  might  even  more  reverentially 
remove  his  hat  as  he  passes  the  Second  Church  in 
Boston,  where  the  broken  body  and  shed  blood  of 
Anne  Hutchinson  and  Mary  Dyer  revived  to  be  the 
sacrament  of  a  New  World  covenant.  Nearly  thirty 
years  ago,  I  went  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  to  a  Quaker 
meeting  in  Milton  Street,  Boston.  There  were  hardly 
a  dozen  persons  present,  and  no  word  was  spoken. 
They  were  so  few  that  they  met  but  once  a  year. 
That  they  should  sit  there,  not  knowing  that  their  lost 
life  had  been  found,  their  broken  seed  risen  to  fruitage, 
was  incomprehensible  to  me  until  I  found,  by  the  jour 
nals  of  Caroline  Fox,  that  the  one  great  man  she  could 
not  recognise  —  and  does  not  mention  while  he  was 
lecturing  in  England  —  was  that  American  in  whom 
her  spiritual  race  had  flowered  ! 

When  Emerson  returned  from  Europe,  he  straight 
way  went  to  New  Bedford  again,  and  preached  there 
for  several  months.  The  struggle  between  the  Ortho 
dox  and  the  Ilicksites  had  ended  in  the  latter  connect 
ing  themselves  with  the  Unitarian  Church,  which  was 
prepared  to  give  up  the  sacraments  to  which  they 
objected.  It  was  their  hope  that  Emerson  would  settle 
with  them,  but  the  price  of  the  Sibylline  book  had  been 
raised ;  he  could  consent  only  if  he  were  permitted  to 


A    LEGEND    OF    GOOD    WOMEN.  85 

pray  or  refrain  from  prayer  as  the  spirit  might  move. 
This  was  not  conceded.  But  he  remained  for  the  true 
Friends  their  good  shepherd.  A  New  Bedford  boy, 
afterwards  distinguished  as  a  journalist  in  New  York, 
Charles  Congdon,  has  included  in  his  published  "Rem 
iniscences  "  the  following  :  — 

"One  day  there  came  into  our  pulpit  the  most 
gracious  of  mortals,  with  a  face  all  benignity,  who 
gave  out  the  first  hymn  and  made  the  first  prayer  as 
an  angel  might  have  read  and  prayed.  Our  choir  was 
a  pretty  good  one,  but  its  best  was  coarse  and  discord 
ant  after  Emerson's  voice.  I  remember  of  the  sermon 
only  that  it  had  an  indefinite  charm  of  simplicity  and 
wisdom,  with  occasional  illustrations  from  Nature, 
which  were  about  the  most  delicate  and  dainty  things 
of  the  kind  which  I  had  ever  heard.  I  could  under 
stand  them,  if  not  the  fresh  philosophical  novelty  of 
the  discourse.  Mr.  Emerson  preached  for  us  for  a  good 
many  Sundays,  lodging  in  the  house  of  a  Quaker  lady 
just  below  ours.  Seated  at  my  own  door,  I  saw 
him  often  go  by,  and  once,  in  the  exuberance  of  my 
childish  admiration,  I  ventured  to  nod  to  him  and  to 
say  '  Gootl  morning.'  To  my  astonishment  he  also 
nodded,  and  smilingly  said,  '  Good  morning ; '  and 
that  is  all  the  conversation  I  ever  had  with  the  sage  of 
Concord.  He  gave  us  afterwards  two  lectures  based 
upon  his  travels  abroad,  and  was  at  a  great  deal 
of  trouble  to  hang  up  prints  by  way  of  illustration. 
There  was  a  picture  of  the  Tribune  in  the  Uffizi 
Gallery  in  Florence,  painted  by  one  of  our  townsmen ; 
and  I  recall  Mr.  Emerson's  great  anxiety  that  it  should 
have  a  good  light,  and  his  lamentation  when  a  good 


80  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

light  was  found  to  be  impossible.  The  lectures  them 
selves  were  so  fine  —  enchanting,  we  found  them  — 
that  I  have  hungered  to  see  them  in  print,  and  have 
thought  of  the  evenings  on  which  they  were  delivered 
as  true  Arabian  Nights." 

Mr.  Hale  White,  in  his  letter  to  the  "Athenaeum" 
already  quoted,  falls  into  the  familiar  mistake  of  at 
tributing  to  the  Quakers  of  New  England  the  indecency 
which  was  really  that  of  the  Puritans,  who  scourged 
those  women  naked  through  the  streets  ;  but  he  tells  a 
charming  story  of  Emerson's  relation  to  the  Friends. 
"  When  Mr.  Emerson  was  last  in  this  country,  I  asked 
him  who  were  his  chief  friends  in  America.  He  replied, 
'  I  find  many  among  the  Quakers.  I  know  one  simple 
old  lady  in  particular  whom  I  especially  honour.  She 
said  to  me  :  I  cannot  think  what  you  find  in  me  which 
is  worth  notice.  Ah  !'  continued  Mr.  Emerson  to  me, 
'  if  she  had  said  yea,  and  the  whole  world  had  thun 
dered  in  her  ear  nay,  she  would  still  have  said  yea.' 
That  was  why  he  honoured  her." 

While  connected  with  the  Unitarian  denomination,  I 
filled  an  engagement  to  preach  and  lecture  in  New  Bed 
ford,  and  there  met  some  of  these  friends  of  Emerson. 
In  Maryland  also  I  had  found  the  Hicksite  Quakers  warm 
sympathisers  with  the  advancing  religion  of  Massa 
chusetts,  in  which  they  recognised  the  travail  of  George 
Fox's  soul.  There  was  the  triumphal  tableau  of  a  his 
toric  drama  in  these  Friends  surrounding  the  pure  flower 
of  New  England  culture.  In  New  Bedford  it  was 
through  the  insight  and  faith  of  good  women  that  the 
new  vision  was  reaching  fulfilment.  Anne  Hutchinson 
and  Mary  Dyer  were  still  living  and  in  great  peace, 


A   LEGEND    OF    GOOD    WOMEN.  87 

finding  their  saint  in  a  descendant  of  the  Moderator 
whose  Synod  banished  them  two  centuries  before.  The 
leading  Quaker  of  New  Bedford  fifty  years  ago  was  Miss 
Mary  Rotch,  whose  friendship  was  precious  to  Emer 
son,  and  she  must  be  included  among  the  women 
whose  influence  largely  moulded  his  life.  She  was 
Margaret  Fuller's  friend  also.  It  is  even  doubtful 
whether  it  was  not  the  vision  of  Mary  Rotch  leaving 
chinch  when  the  Last  Supper  was  to  be  commemorated 
which  first  cast  a  blight  upon  that  rite  in  Emerson's 
eyes.  She  was  a  woman  of  culture,  quiet  humour, 
and  sympathetic  voice.  Emerson  loved  to  quote  the 
words  of  Mary  Rotch  whenever  conversation  threat 
ened  to  become  theological.  On  one  occasion,  I  re 
member  an  interval  of  silence,  after  which  he  said, 
"  Mary  Rotch  told  me  that  her  little  girl  one  day 
asked  if  she  might  do  something.  She  replied,  '  What 
does  the  voice  in  thee  say  ? '  The  child  went  off,  and 
after  a  time  returned  to  say,  '  Mother,  the  little  voice 
says,  no.'  That,"  said  Emerson,  "calls  the  tears  to 
one's  eyes." 

Among  those  who  were  friends  of  Emerson's  thought 
in  that  early  period  may  here  be  mentioned  Elizabeth 
Peabocly.  Since  Emerson's  death  a  number  of  ladies 
in  Boston  celebrated  the  seventieth  birthday  of  this 
lady,  and  in  recalling  the  time  when  she  came  to  Boston 
to  teach  school,  she  mentioned  her  first  acquaintance 
with  him.  "  1  had  a  great  desire  to  study  Greek,  and 
Waldo,  just  through  Harvard,  was  teaching  it.  Through 
his  brother  William  he  became  my  teacher  ;  but  he  was 
so  shy,  and  I  was  so  shy,  we  would  sit  at  a  table,  and 
he  did  not  dare  to  look  at  me,  nor  I  to  speak  to  him. 


88  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

So  we  had  a  hard  time  of  it  till  one  day  William  Em 
erson  came  with  Waldo,  and  said  everything  necessary 
to  be  said.  After  William  had  spoken  for  him,  Waldo 
took  courage,  things  went  on  easier,  and  I  went  on 
with  my  Greek."  Miss  Peabody  and  her  sisters  — 
afterwards  Mrs.  Hawthorne  and  Mrs.  Horace  Mann  — 
Margaret  Fuller,  Elizabeth  Hoar  (who  had  been  be 
trothed  to  his  brother),  and  Sarah  Clarke,  were  not 
only  true  friends,  but  of  high — some  of  the  highest  — 
value  to  him.  And  meanwhile  amid  them  still  sat  the 
three  fair  Fates,  who  had  helped  to  attune  that  heart 
and  intellect  of  his  to  a  harmony  which  drew  to  him 
the  trust  of  woman.  This  he  found  his  panoply  against 
animadversions  and  misunderstandings,  whose  severity 
was,  and  is,  underrated  because  so  cheerily  borne  by 
Emerson. 

Sarah  Bradford,  the  friend  of  his  childhood,  had 
married  Emerson's  relative,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Ripley, 
and  was  settled  at  Waltham,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Boston.  A  letter  of  hers  to  Emerson's  aunt,  Mary 
Moody  Emerson,  shows  by  its  date,  Sept.  4,  1883, 
that  Emerson  must  have  sped  to  that  Waltham  home 
immediately  after  his  arrival  from  Europe.  But  it 
shows  something  more.  "We  have  had  a  delightful 
visit  of  two  days  from  Waldo.  We  feel  about  him  as 
you  no  doubt  do.  While  we  regard  him  still  more  than 
ever  as  the  apostle  of  the  eternal  reason,  we  do  not 
like  to  hear  the  crows,  as  Pindar  says,  caw  at  the  bird 
of  Jove ;  nevertheless,  he  has  some  stern  advocates. 
A  lady  was  mourning  the  other  day  to  Mr.  Francis 
about  Mr.  Emerson's  insanity.  '  Madam,  I  wish  I 
were  half  as  sane,'  he  answered,  and  with  warm  indig- 


A   LEGEND    OF   GOOD    WOMEN.  89 

nation."  This  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Conners  Francis,  for 
a  long  time  professor  in  the  Divinity  College  at  Cam 
bridge,  whose  wife  was  a  sister  of  Mrs.  Eipley,  and 
whose  sister  was  Lydia  Maria  Child,  author  of  various 
works,  among  others  of  the  earliest  contribution  to  the 
science  of  religions,  "The  Progress  of  Religious  Ideas." 
Thus  was  Emerson  able  to  spare  the  applause  of 
bigots,  being  surrounded  by  good  women,  who  never 
fail  in  their  sympathy  for  "  an  ideal  right."  Nor  did 
they  fail  of  their  reward.  "  You  question  me,"  writes 
Margaret  Fuller  to  a  friend,  "as  to  the  nature  of  the 
benefits  conferred  upon  me  by  Mr.  Emerson's  preach 
ing.  I  answer  that  his  influence  has  been  more  ben 
eficial  to  me  than  that  of  any  American,  and  that  from 
him  I  first  learned  what  is  meant  by  the  inward  life. 
Many  other  springs  have  since  fed  the  stream  of  living 
waters,  but  he  first  opened  the  fountain.  That  the 
'  mind  is  its  own  place,'  was  a  dead  phrase  to  me  till 
he  cast  light  upon  my  mind.  Several  of  his  sermons 
stand  apart  in  my  memory,  like  landmarks  in  my  spir 
itual  history.  It  would  take  a  volume  to  tell  what  this 
one  influence  did  for  me,  but  perhaps  I  shall  some  time 
see  that  it  was  best  to  be  forced  to  help  myself."  In 
this  Margaret  Fuller  has  expressed  the  grateful  expe 
rience  of  the  women  I  have  named,  while  each  was  a 
sacred  person  in  the  experience  of  Emerson.  To  her 
words  may  be  added  these  of  Goethe  : 

"  Das  E wig-Wei  bliche 
Zieht  uns  hinan." 


90  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 


X. 

THE  WAIL  OF  THE  CENTURY. 

ONCE  when  we  were  conversing  about  Robert 
Browning's  poetry,  Emerson  said,  "Paracelsus 
is  the  wail  of  the  nineteenth  century."  I  was  a  new 
student  in  Divinity  College,  and  was  rejoicing  so  much 
in  having  reached  a  shore  so  free  as  Unitarianism,  that 
I  did  not  quite  understand  Emerson's  remark.  After 
wards,  while  rambling  along  the  Plymouth  shore,  the 
gently  beating  waves  seemed  to  repeat 

"  The  sad  rhyme  of  the  men  who  proudly  clung 
To  their  first  fault,  and  withered  in  their  pride." 

Like  those  voyagers  in  Paracelsus's  fable,  who  bore 
their  household  gods  to  the  wrong  shore,  the  old 
Plymouth  Pilgrims  fixed  their  ideals  in  rock-caves  of 
dogma. 

"A  hundred  shapes  of  lucid  stone! 

All  day  we  built  its  shrine  for  each, 
A  shrine  of  rock  for  every  one, 
Nor  paused  we  till  in  the  westering  sun 

We  sat  together  on  the  beach 
To  sing  because  our  task  was  done. 
When  lo !  what  shouts  and  merry  songs  I 
What  laughter  all  the  distance  stirs ! 
A  loaded  raft  with  happy  throngs 
Of  gentle  islanders ! 


THE    WAIL    OF    THE    CENTURY.  91 

4  Our  isles  are  just  at  hand,'  they  cried, 

4  Like  cloudlets  faint  at  even  sleeping ; 
Our  temple-gates  are  opened  wide, 

Our  olive-groves  thick  shade  are  keeping 
For  these  majestic  forms,'  they  cried. 
Oh,  then  we  awoke  with  sudden  start 
From  our  deep  dream,  and  knew,  too  late, 
How  bare  the  rock,  how  desolate, 
Which  had  received  our  precious  freight : 

Yet  we  called  out  — w  Depart ! 
Our  gifts,  once  given,  must  here  abide. 

Our  work  is  done ;  we  have  no  heart 
To  mar  our  work,'  we  cried."" 

Anne  Hutchinson  and  Mary  Dyer  and  Roger  Wil 
liams,  and  their  bands  of  liberal  pilgrims,  seemed  now 
the  gentle  islanders.  From  Rhode  Island  —  where  the 
islets  in  the  harbour  and  the  streets  of  their  settlements 
bore  the  names  of  graces  and  virtues  —  they  came  to 
tell  the  Pilgrims  how  hard  and  desolate  was  the  dogma 
that  had  received  their  ideals  of  truth,  liberty,  and 
justice,  whose  exile  they  had  shared.  Sternly  they 
were  bidden  depart,  but  ever  and  again  they  returned. 

In  the  end  the  Pilgrims  had  to  yield  and  start  on  a 
new  pilgrimage,  seeking  new  shrines  for  their  gods. 
There,  on  the  self-same  island  where  Anne  Hutchinson 
founded  her  community  of  free  and  equal  men  and 
women,  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  later  was  born 
Channing ;  and  there  stands  the  beautiful  memorial 
church  that  bears  his  name,  though  less  beautiful  in  its 
architecture  than  in  the  fact  that  Channing  objected  to 
the  introduction  of  even  a  theistic  expression  of  belief 
into  the  constitution  of  the  earlier  church  he  dedicated 
at  Newport  (1835).  He  demurred  to  the  words  "  be- 


92  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

lieving  in  one  God,  the  Father,"  lest  they  should  ulti 
mately  become  a  fetter  upon  some  honest  seeker  of 
truth.  Thus  is  the  church  a  memorial  also  of  Anne 
Hutchinson,  in  the  constitution  of  whose  State  it  was 
expressly  provided  "-that  none  be  accounted  delin 
quent  for  doctrine." 

In  the  phraseology  of  the  old  Pilgrims,  Anne  Hutch 
inson  and  her  gentle  islanders  had  been  banished 
because  they  were  "  unlit  for  the  society"  which  had 
been  constituted  at  Boston,  and  because  it  was  feared 
that  they  u  might,  upon  some  revelation,  make  a  sud 
den  insurrection."  But  when  from  Rhode  Island  her 
voice  came  back  in  the  eloquence  of  Channing,  none 
could  be  more  fit  for  the  society  of  the  citizens,  though 
there  was  a  revelation,  and  thereon  an  insurrection. 
The  young  scholars  followed  Channing  as  far  as  he 
could  lead,  and  once  more  fixed  their  ideals  in  the 
shrines  to  which  he  led  them. 

UnitarLanism  seemed,  indeed,  an  abode  fair  enough 
when  seen  from  the  bareness  of  Plymouth  Rock.  Its 
rise  and  progress  are  traceable  in  a  fine  enthusiasm. 
It  did  away  with  all  the  horrors  of  Calvinistic  theology 
—  its  mercantile  atonement,  its  doctrine  of  human  de 
pravity,  its  hell  and  devils.  When  the  lucid  ideals  had 
superseded  such  grim  gargoyles  of  the  old  churches, 
the  children  of  the  Pilgrims  sang  because  their  task 
seemed  done.  t 

But,  alas  !  once  again  the  voice  of  the  gentle  island 
ers  was  h.eard,  and  the  new  coast  was  found  bare  and 
desolate.  It  was  found  that  Unitarianism  had  unset 
tled  everything,  settled  nothing.  It  was  trying  to  hold 
on  to  the  Christian  fairy-tales  after  destroying  the 


THE    WAIL    OF    THE    CEXTURY.  93 

faith  on  which  they  rested.  It  clung  to  the  rosy 
visions  of  a  theologic  heaven,  whose  evidences  it  inval 
idated  by  repudiating  its  equal  revelation  of  visions 
not  rosy.  It  was  able  to  give  no  reason  for  its  sur 
viving  faith  in  God  or  immortality  ;  and  when  Abner 
Kneeland  denied  these,  and  was  shut  up  in  prison, 
Unitarianism  mingled  with  its  petition  for  mercy  to  its 
abhorred  child  a  cry  of  helplessness. 

It  was  then  shown,  also,  that  temples  sprinkled  with 
Unitarian  holy  water  were  not  only  prepared  to  im 
prison  the  human  mind,  but  might  be  made  buttresses 
of  the  national  inhumanity  based  upon  the  Bible. 
What,  then,  was  Unitarianism?  Christianity  made 
easy.  New  England  theology  writh  none  of  its  crosses, 
but  all  of  its  comforts,  adapted  by  scholars  to  suit 
spiritual  epicures.  Between  the  Universalists,  who 
believed  God  too  good  to  damn  them,  and  the  Unita 
rians,  who  believed  they  were  too  good  to  be  damned, 
respectability  was  able  to  make  itself  quite  comfort 
able.  But  how  was  it  with  the  real  heart  and  intellect 
of  the  country? 

The  "wail  of  the  nineteenth  century,"  already  audi 
ble  in  the  Old  World,  was  first  heard  in  the  new  by 
Emerson.  Even  in  the  peaceful  homes  of  his  Quakers, 
or  in  that  happy  retreat  at  Waltham,  it  followed  him, 
and  to  it  he  must  respond.  A  young  man  himself,  — 
in  years  only  thirty  when  he  returned  from  Europe, 
—  he  saw  the  young  men  of  America  as  if  stricken  by 
a  mental  malady  and  melancholy,  which  "  strips  them 
of  all  manly  aims  and  bereaves  them  of  animal 
spirits." 
,  "The  noblest  youths,"  he  wrote  in  a  letter  printed 


94       EMERSON  AT  HOME  AND  ABROAD. 

in  the  "Dial,"  "are  in  a,  few  years  converted  into  pale 
caryatides  to  uphold  the  temple  of  conventions.  They 
are  in  the  state  of  the  young  Persians  when  '  that 
mighty  Yezdan  prophet'  addressed  them  and  said, 
'  Behold  the  signs  of  evil  days  are  come  ;  there  is 
now  no  longer  any  right  course  of  action  nor  any  self- 
devotion  left  among  the  Iranis.'  As  soon  as  they  have 
arrived  at  this  turn,  there  are  no  employments  to  sat 
isfy  them ;  they  are  educated  above  the  work  of  their 
time  and  country  and  disdain  it.  Many  of  the  more 
acute  minds  pass  into  a  lofty  criticism  of  these  things, 
which  only  embitters  their  sensibility  to  the  evil  and 
widens  the  feeling  of  hostility  between  them  and  the 
citizens  at  large.  From  this  cause  companies  of  the 
best-educated  young  men  in  the  Atlantic  States  every 
week  take  their  departure  for  Europe  ;  for  no  business 
that  they  have  in  that  country,  but  simply  because 
they  shall  so  be  hid  from  the  reproachful  eyes  of  their 
countrymen,  and  agreeably  entertained  by  one  or  two 
years,  with  some  lurking  hope,  no  doubt,  that  some 
thing  may  turn  up  to  give  them  a  decided  direction. 
It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  is  only  a  postponement  of 
their  proper  work,  with  the  additional  disadvantage  of 
a  two  years'  vacation.  Add  that  this  class  is  rapidly 
increasing  by  the  infatuation  of  the  active  class,  who, 
while  they  regard  these  young  Americans  with  suspicion 
and  dislike,  educate  their  own.  children  in  the  same 
courses  and  use  all  possible  endeavours  to  secure  to 
them  the  same  result." 

This,  then,  was  "the  wail  of  the  nineteenth  century." 
Undoubtedly  there  was  a  cause  for  the  acute  form  as 
sumed  by  this  malady.  Authentic  voices  from  Europe 


THE    WAIL    OF    THE    CENTURY.  95 

were  announcing  the  departure  of  old  beliefs  and  the 
crumbling  of  old  institutions.  Kant  and  Schelling, 
Jacob!  and  Schleiermacher,  Herder  and  De  Wette, 
Goethe  and  Schiller,  Cousin  and  Quinet,  Coleridge 
and  Carlyle,  were  read  by  students  in  colleges  sup 
posed  to  be  intent  upon  languages  of  the  dead.  Above 
all,  Carlyle  had  spoken  to  young  Americans,  as  Em 
erson  said,  with  an  emphasis  which  deprived  them  of 
sleep.  Yet,  though  roused,  they  were  drawn  to  travel 
with  shamed  faces  and  averted  eyes  on  the  traditional 
paths,  albeit  these  paths  had  been  fringed  with  fresh 
flowers  by  Channing  and  the  early  Unitarians.  The 
greatest  voices  of  their  time  brought  them  only  pain 
as  they  "  clung  to  their  first  fault,"  heritage  from  their 
fathers,  who  had  prisoned  the  ideals  of  America  in 
stoniest  shrines. 

In  Plymouth  Emerson's  first  lecture  was  given,  in 
1834,  and  probably  in  the  church  founded  by  the  Pil 
grim  Fathers.  The  long  and  brave  history  that  made  its 
foreground,  sent  impressiveness  to  the  vision  to  which 
he  pointed  the  children  of  the  Pilgrims.  The  Hon. 
Thomas  Russell,  then  a  schoolboy,  remembers  across 
the  half-century  the  weight  of  these  words :  ' '  Why 
cannot  some  little  community  of  men  leave  others  to 
seem  and  content  themselves  to  be  ?  " 


UNIVERSITY 


96  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND   ABKOAD. 


XI. 

CULTURE. 

T^MERSON'S  reference,  quoted  in  the  previous 
JLJ  chapter,  to  "that  mighty  Yezdan  prophet"  who 
came  to  the  Iranis  in  their  evil  days,  may  be  followed 
by  the  legend  of  how  their  darkness  and  doubt  were 
dispelled  by  Arda  Viraf. 

' '  They  say  that  once  upon  a  time  the  pious  Zoroaster 
made  the  religion  which  he  had  received  current  in  the 
world,  and  till  the  completion  of  three  hundred  years 
the  religion  was  in  purity,  and  men  were  without  doubts. 
This  religion,  namely,  all  the  Avesta  and  Zend,  written 
upon  prepared  cowskins  and  with  gold  ink,  was  depos 
ited  in  the  archives  of  Stakhar  Papakan.  But  Alex 
ander  the  Great,  who  was  dwelling  in  Egypt,  burnt 
them  up,  and  after  that  there  was  confusion  and  con 
tention  among  the  people  of  the  country  of  Iran.  They 
were  doubtful  in  regard  to  God,  and  religions  of  many 
kinds  and  various  codes  of  laws  were  promulgated. 

"And  it  is  related  that  the  wise  men  and  teachers 
of  religion  assembled,  and  agreed  that  they  would  give 
to  some  one  among  them  a  sacred  narcotic,  that  he 
might  pass  into  the  invisible  world  and  bring  them 
intelligence.  The  lot  for  this  task  fell  on  Arda  Viraf. 

"Then  those  teachers  of  religion  filled  three  golden 


CULTURE.  97 

cups  with  wine  and  the  narcotic  Vishtasp ;  and  they 
gave  one  cup  to  Virdf  with  the  word  '  Well  thought,' 
and  the  second  cup  with  the  word  '  Well  said,'  and  the 
third  cup  with  the  word  '  Well  done.' 

"While  Viraf  slept,  seven  women  kept  the  ever 
burning  fire  and  the  teachers  chanted  the  Avesta.  On 
the  seventh  day  the  soul  of  Viraf  returned,  and  he  rose 
up  as  from  a  pleasant  sleep,  inspired  with  good  thoughts 
and  full  of  joy.  An  accomplished  writer  sat  before 
him,  and  whatsoever  Viraf  said  he  wrote  down  clearly 
and  correctly,  as  folio weth  :  — 

"  'Taking  the  first  footstep  with  the  good  thought, 
the  second  with  the  good  word,  and  the  third  with  the 
good  deed,  I  entered  paradise. 

"  '  I  put  forth  the  first  footstep  to  the  star-track  on 
Ilumat,  where  good  thoughts  are  received  with  hospi 
tality  ;  and  I  saw  those  souls  of  the  pious  whose 
radiance,  which  ever  increased,  was  glittering  as  the 
stars.  And  I  asked  Ataro,  the  angel,  "  Which  place  is 
this,  and  which  people  are  these?"  And  he  answered, 
"  This  is  the  star-track  and  these  are  they  who  in  the 
world  offered  no  prayers  and  chanted  no  liturgies  ;  they 
also  exercised  no  sovereignty.  Through  other  works 
they  have  attained  this  happiness." 

"  '  I  came  to  a  place  and  saw  the  souls  of  the  liberal 
adorned  above  all  others  in  splendour,  and  it  seemed  to 
me  sublime. 

"  '  I  saw  the  souls  of  the  great  and  truthful  speakers, 
who  walked  in  lofty  splendour,  and  it  seemed  to  me 
sublime. 

"  '  I  saw  the  souls  of  agriculturists  in  a  shining  place, 
as  they  stood  and  offered  praise  before  the  spirits  of 


98  EMEESON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

water  and  earth,  trees  and  cattle.  Great  is  their  throne. 
The  souls  of  artisans  I  also  saw  on  embellished  thrones. 
And  it  seemed  to  me  sublime. 

"  '  I  saw  the  souls  of  the  faithful,  the  teachers  and 
inquirers,  in  the  greatest  gladness,  on  a  splendid  throne  ; 
and  it  seemed  to  me  sublime. 

"  '  I  also  saw  the  friendly  souls  of  interceders  and 
peace-makers,  who  thereby  ever  increased  their  brilli 
ance,  and  they  ever  walked  in  an  atmosphere  of  light. 

"  '  I  also  saw  the  pre-eminent  world  of  the  religious, 
which  is  the  light,  full  of  glory  and  of  joy,  with  which 
no  one  is  satiated.'  " 

Five  centuries  after  this  was  written  down,  after 
much  earlier  traditions,  its  vision  was  fulfilled  in  Con 
cord.  There,  in  the  town  of  his  fathers,  Emerson  went  to 
reside  in  1834.  He  dwelt  in  the  Old  Manse,  built  by  his 
grandfather,  with  the  venerable  Dr.  Ripley  (for  whom 
his  mother  was  keeping  house) ,  until  the  following  year. 
Then  he  was  married  to  Lidian  Jackson,  and  purchased 
the  house  and  farm  where  he  thenceforth  lived.  His 
mother  came  to  reside  at  his  house,  and  there  lived  until 
her  death,  November  16,  1853.  His  aunt  Mary  was  a 
frequent  inmate  until  her  death  in  May,  18G3.  Near 
by,  at  Waltham,  and  subsequently  in  the  Old  Manse  at 
Concord,  was  Sarah  Ripley,  who  died  in  1867.  And 
soon  came  the  most  brilliant  and  cultivated  woman 
America  ever  produced, — Margaret  Fuller. 

While  the  teachers  chanted  their  scriptures,  and  noble 
women  kept  the  sacred  fire  ever  burning,  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  drank  the  Vishtasp,  and  with  good  thought, 
good  word,  good  deed,  mounted  to  the  star- track,  and 


CULTURE.  99 

conversed  with  the  great  souls  of  all  ages,  as  trans 
figured   in    the  light  and  liberty   of  his   own  genius. 
When   he  re-appeared  to  the  world,  it  was  with  the 
vision  of  one  who  had  seen  the  invisible,  and  was  able 
to  shed  the  needed  light  upon  the  life  and  labour  of  the 
farmer  and  the  artisan,  no  less  than  upon  tasks  of  the 
teacher  and  scholar.     The  age  of  scepticism  was  ended, 
and  the  plague  of  pessimism  wras  escaped. 
/'  And  this  Vishtasp,  what  was  it?     The  life-blood  of 
j   all  noblest  hearts  and  brains,  distilled  by  finest  art 
^  and  mingled  with  the  wine  of  his  own  genius. 

When  Emerson  was  last  in  London,  his  friend  William 
Allingham  guided  him  to  various  places  in  Old  London, 
Chaucer's  "  Tabard,"  Guildhall,  and  also  at  his  special 
desire  to  Milton's  grave  in  the  Church  of  St.  Giles, 
Cripplegate.  It  is  in  the  chancel,  the  stone  partly 
covered  by  a  pew.  Allingham  asked,  "Do  many 
people  come  to  look  at  this  grave?''  "Americans, 
sir,"  was  the  pew-opener's  reply.  In  the  cab,  Emerson 
said,  "  Perhaps  nobody  has  so  poor  an  opinion  of  my 
books  as  I  have  myself."  "That  seems  to  me  very 
likely,"  answered  Allingham  with  a  smile. 

Some  day  an  artist  will  paint  the  picture  of  Emerson 
in  St.  Giles  Church,  and  inscribe  it,  "  At  the  grave  of 
his  father." 

So  soon  as  the  pew,  which  partly  covers  Milton  him 
self  as  well  as  his  grave,  is  removed,  it  will  appear  that 
he  has  had  no  successor  but  in  America.  One  may 
find  in  England  a  fragment  of  him  kneeling  here, 
another  fragment  singing  there  ;  but  the  whole  of  him 
has  for  some  time  been  discoverable  only  in  the  literary 
fraternity  of  America,  mingling  morning  lark-songs 


100  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

with  the  chants  of  prophecy,  and  illumining  the  scroll 
of  human  equality  with  the  golden  letters  of  poetry. 

Above  all  was  Emerson  the  flower  of  the  heart  of 
Milton.  An  unspeakable  awe-stricken  reverence  for 
virtue  and  wisdom ;  a  spirit  ever  kneeling  before  the 
universe  as  the  transcendent  temple  of  goodness  and 
truth  ;  a  horror  at  the  thought  of  raising  private  inter 
ests  before  eternal  principles  and  laws  ;  a  faith  not  to 
be  argued  with,  absolute,  in  personal  righteousness  as 
the  primary  condition  of  all  worth,  involving  a  sense 
of  corruption  in  all  qualities  however  brilliant  which 
have  not  that  foundation.  These,  however  invested, 
were  the  essential  elements  of  that  Puritanism  which  in 
Milton  saw  the  earth  and  sky  aflame  with  cherubim, 
and  coined  winds  and  seas  into  anthems  of  adoration. 
In  the  course  of  two  centuries  Puritanism  had,  in  the 
hands  of  the  common  people,  been  moulded  and 
hardened  into  a  grim  unlovely  dungeon.  Abandon  it, 
said  Channing ;  Destroy  it  utterly,  said  Parker ;  but 
Emerson  said.  Be  not  afraid,  this  also  is  penetrable  to 
the  spirit :  and  he  led  the  way  beyond  the  dark  mouth 
of  the  old  cavern  to  tinted  halls  and  fairy  grottos, 
repeating  mystically  the  foliations  and  clusters  of  the 
bright  world  without 

An  enterprising  house  in  America  has  promised  a 
reprint  of  the  "  Dial."  It  may  be  that  those  four  vol 
umes,  long  precious  to  their  few  fortunate  owners,  will 
presently  be  generally  accessible.  I  will  therefore 
select  from  them  only  such  passages  as  may  indicate 
the  early  impressions  made  upon  Emerson's  mind  by 
the  masters  of  literature.  Comparison  of  these  early 
criticisms  with  later  writings  will  show  pretty  clearly 


CULTURE.  101 

that  some  of  them  are  transcripts  from  his  diary  kept 
in  youth.  Horace  Mann  reports  him  as  having  in  a 
lecture  (1837)  condensed  the  commandments,  as 
regards  young  men,  into  two  :  "  sit  alone"  and  "keep 
a  journal."  "  Have  a  room  by  yourself,  and  if  you  can 
not  do  without,  sell  your  coat  and  sit  in  a  blanket." 
Emerson's  advice  came  from  his  experience. 

Let  us  read  what  in  early  years  he  wrote  of  Mil 
ton  :  — 

"It  is  the  prerogative  of  this  great  man  to  stand  at 
this  hour  foremost  of  all  men  in  literary  history,  and 
so  (shall  we  not  say?)  of  all  men,  in  the  power  to 
inspire.  Virtue  goes  out  of  him  into  others.  Leaving 
out  of  view  the  pretensions  of  our  contemporaries 
(always  an  incalculable  influence),  wre  think  no  man 
can  be  named  whose  mind  still  acts  on  the  cultivated 
intellect  of  England  and  America  with  an  energy  com 
parable  to  that  of  Milton.  As  a  poet,  Shakespeare 
undoubtedly  transcends  and  far  surpasses  him  in  his 
popularity  with  foreign  nations  ;  but  Shakespeare  is  a 
voice  merely  ;  who  and  what  he  was  that  sang,  that 
sings,  we  know  not.  Milton  stands  erect,  commanding, 
still  visible  as  a  man  among  men,  and  reads  the  laws 
of  the  moral  sentiment  to  the  new-born  race.  There  is 
something  pleasing  in  the  affection  with  which  we  can 
regard  a  man  who  died  a  hundred  and  sixty  years  ago 
in  the  other  hemisphere,  who,  in  respect  to  personal 
relations,  is  to  us  as  the  wind,  yet  by  an  influence 
purely  personal  makes  us  jealous  for  his  fame  as  for  that 
of  a  near  friend.  He  is  identified  in  the  mind  with  all 
select  and  holy  images,  with  the  supreme  interests  of 
the  human  race." 


102  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

A  hundred  and  sixty  years  after  Milton's  death  came 
Emerson's  first  year  at  Concord  (1834)  ;  and  in  these 
words  just  quoted  is  the  spirit  which  still  held  last 
those  who  supposed  that  they  had  broken  with  the  new 
heretic.  He  did  not  so  much  consider  the  letter  of 
current  beliefs  as  the  sentiments  and  ideas  trying  to 
express  themselves  through  them ;  these  he  re-stated 
with  such  fulness  and  beauty  that  their  traditional  or 
dogmatic  sheath  softly  folded  away  beneath.  There 
was  even  more  of  the  Puritan  than  of  the  Unitarian  in 
him.  As  Swedenborg  made  a  dictionary  of  corre 
spondences  for  the  names  and  words  of  the  Bible, 
Emerson  found  a  significance  in  old  beliefs.  I  remem 
ber  how  old  religious  phraseology  sometimes  tinged  his 
casual  talk,  as  "the  saving  grace  of  common-sense." 
He  looked  upon  human  creeds  with  the  same  calmness 
as  upon  cn~stals,  flowers,  and  weeds  ;  they  were  to  him 
all  genuine  products  of  nature  ;  and  as  a  religious  nat 
uralist,  his  instinct  led  him  to  develop,  recombine, 
transmute.  He  was  never  really  alienated  from  the  best 
spirit  of  his  fathers  ;  and  when  his  mind  expanded  to 
its  flower,  albeit  so  different  from  any  that  the  same 
stem  had  borne  before,  there  was  a  corresponding 
movement  of  the  roots  deeper  into  the  Puritan  soil 
from  which  he  had  sprung.  For  every  hard  dogma  he 
unfolded  a  fragrant  tinted  petal  of  thought.  He  lost 
nothing,  but  raised  up  all  to  the  last  day.  This  was, 
I  believe,  one  reason  why  the  religious  sentiment  of 
New  England  was  never  alienated  from  Emerson ; 
he  seemed  to  be  giving  a  consummate  statement  of  fun 
damental  beliefs,  a  prophet  of  true  lineage  announcing 
the  fulfilment  of  every  jot  and  tittle  of  the  faith  deliv 
ered  to  the  saints. 


CULTURE.  103 

When  the  "Mayflower"  sailed,  it  took  along  no 
copy  of  Shakespeare.  A  good  argument  may,  indeed, 
be  made  from  Milton  for  performing  Shakespeare's 
plays  even  on  Sunday  (could  that  covering  pew  only  be 
removed  !),  but,  in  the  Puritan  measure,  he  who  would 
write  an  epic  must  live  an  epic  ;  and  Shakespeare  was 
not  in  the  list  of  martyrs.  In  his  early  estimate  of 
Milton,  Emerson's  sentence  concerning  Shakespeare 
discloses  a  survival  of  this  feeling.  And  with  all  his 
enthusiasm  for  Shakespeare,  which  began  when  he  was 
at  college,  there  are  recurrences  of  chagrin  at  the 
absence  of  any  personality  corresponding  to  the  great 
ness  of  the  works.  It  was,  perhaps,  in  some  mood  of 
this  kind  that  he  omitted  from  "  Representative  Men," 
as  mentioned  by  Mr.  Cooke,  a  passage  delivered  in  the 
lecture  on  Shakespeare  :  — 

"There  is  nothing  in  literature  comparable  to 
Shakespeare's  expression  for  strength  and  for  delivery. 
Men  have  existed  who  affirmed  that  they  heard  the 
language  of  celestial  angels,  talked  with  them ;  but 
that,  when  they  returned  into  the  natural  world, 
though  they  preserved  the  memory  of  these  conversa 
tions,  they  found  it  impossible  to  transmute  the  things 
that  had  been  said  into  human  thoughts  and  words. 
But  Shakespeare  is  like  one  who  had  been  rapt  into 
some  purer  state  of  sensation  and  existence,  had 
learned  the  secret  of  a  finer  diction,  and,  when  he  re 
turned  to  the  world,  retained  the  fine  organ  which  had 
been  opened  above." 

Possibly  this  was  felt  to  assign  too  high  a  source  for 
Shakespeare's  inspiration.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  cause  of  the  omission  of  a  passage  so  beautiful 


104  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

and  just  —  which  recalls  Tieck's  pretty  fable  of  the 
fairies  whispering  in  turn  to  the  sleeping  boy  the 
secrets  he  must  afterwards  tell,  —  as  encomium  it  falls 
beneath  others  in  his  estimates  of  Shakespeare.  Yet 
in  all  that  he  has  written  about  Shakespeare  we  may 
hear  the  echo  of  Milton's  sentence  :  "I  was  confirmed 
in  this  opinion,  that  he  who  would  not  be  frustrate  of 
his  hope  to  write  well  hereafter  in  laudable  things, 
ought  himself  to  be  a  true  poem."  Schiller  —  as  Mr. 
James  Sime  has  pointed  out  in  his  beautiful  biography 
—  long  found  it  intolerable  that  in  Shakespeare's 
writings  "  the  poet  would  never  let  himself  be  caught, 
would  never  talk  with  his  reader."  "For  several 
years,"  adds  Schiller,  "I  studied  Shakespeare,  and 
gave  him  my  entire  reverence,  before  his  individuality 
became  dear  to  me."  But  this  period  was  even  more 
slowly  passed  by  Emerson.  "It  must  even  go  into 
the  world's  history,"  he  says  so  late  as  1850,  "that 
the  best  poet  led  an  obscure  and  profane  life,  using  his 
genius  for  the  public  amusement."  I  feel  pretty  cer 
tain  that  it  was  some  feeling  of  this  kind  which  led 
Emerson  to  lend  an  ear  to  the  theory,  first  propounded 
by  Miss  Bacon,  that  the  plays  were  not  written  by 
Shakespeare  but  by  Lord  Bacon.  Emerson  did  not,  I 
think,  imagine  that  they  could  have  been  written  by 
Bacon,  though  he  might  not  have  agreed  with  Carlyle 
that  Bacon  ' '  could  as  easily  have  created  this  planet 
as  written  '  Hamlet.' "  But  he  had  some  scepticism 
about  the  authorship  of  the  plays.  He  introduced 
Miss  Bacon  to  Carlyle,  who  wrote  back  that  she  was 
mad,  and  so  she  became.  Emerson  told  me  that  he 
thought  Hawthorne's  chapter  concerning  her,  "  Ilecol- 


CULTURE.  105 

lections  of  a  Gifted  Woman,"  one  of  the  best  things 
he  had  written,  but  was  not  further  interested  in  her 
theory.  Carlyle,  as  I  remember,  could  never  quite 
forgive  Shakespeare  for  not  having  written  a  History 
of  England,  and  he  did  not  admire  him  so  much  as 
Emerson.  In  later  life,  in  an  extemporaneous  speech 
at  Howard  University,  "Washington,  Emerson  said  of 
Shakespeare,  "  No  nation  has  produced  anything  like 
his  equal.  There  is  no  quality  in  the  human  mind, 
there  is  no  class  of  topics,  there  is  no  legion  of  thought 
in  which  he  has  not  soared  or  descended,  and  none  in 
which  he  has  not  said  the  commanding  word.  All  men 
are  impressed,  in  proportion  to  their  own  advancement 
in  thought,  by  the  genius  of  Shakespeare  ;  and  the 
greatest  mind  values  him  the  most." 

Emerson  went  thoroughly  into  old  English  books, 
from  Chaucer  to  Sir  Thomas  Browne  and  Burton,  but 
valued  more  highly  the  earliest  of  these,  and  does  not 
hesitate  to  speak  of  his  reading  of  such  as  an  "idle 
habit."  He  came  among  these  venerable  ones  like  the 
man  with  the  touchstone  in  Allingham's  poem  — 

"  Of  heirloom  jewels,  prized  so  much, 

Were  many  changed  to  chips  and  clods, 
And  even  ^tsitues  of  the  gods 
Crumbled  beneath  its  touch." 

The  nature  of  his  touchstone  he  has  told :  "  There  is 
no  better  illustration  of  the  laws  by  which  the  world  is 
governed  than  literature.  There  is  no  luck  in  it.  It 
proceeds  by  fate.  Every  scripture  is  given  by  the 
inspiration  of  God.  Every  composition  proceeds  out 
of  a  greater  or  less  depth  of  thought,  and  this  is  the 
measure  of  its  effect." 


106  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

The  chief  thing  he  learned  from  the  philosophers  of 
the  past  was  the  characteristic  of  the  best  thought  of 
his  own  time,  namely,  its  realism  and  tendency  to 
scientific  statement.  The  old  wives'  prescriptions  of 
spiders'  legs  and  amulets  recommended  for  divers  mal 
adies  by  Lord  Bacon  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  the 
aerial  devils  with  which  Burton  declares  the  air  swarm 
ing,  of  these  and  other  cobwebs  he  sees  the  age  of 
science  sweeping  the  world  clear.  The  schoolboys  of 
to-day  cannot  conceive  how  their  fathers  were  content 
with  their  pinhole  views  of  the  universe. 

Christendom  has  now  become  a  vast  reading-room. 
Every  hope,  fear,  folly,  whim,  has  its  organ. 

"  It  prints  a  vast  carcass  of  tradition  every  year  with 
as  much  solemnity  as  a  new  revelation.  Along  with 
these  it  vents  books  that  breathe  of  new  mornings,  that 
seem  to  heave  with  the  life  of  millions,  books  for  which 
men  and  women  peak  and  pine  ;  books  which  take  the 
rose  out  of  the  cheek  of  him  that  wrote  them,  and  give 
him  to  the  midnight  a  sad,  solitary,  diseased  man; 
which  leave  no  man  where  they  found  him,  but  make 
him  better  or  worse  ;  and  which  work  dubiously  on 
society,  and  seem  to  inoculate  it  with  a  venom  before 
any  healthy  result  appears.  The  favourable  side  of 
this  research  and  love  of  facts  is  the  bold  and  system 
atic  criticism  which  has  appeared  in  every  department 
of  literature.  From  Wolf's  attack  upon  the  authenticity 
of  the  Homeric  poems  dates  a  new  epoch  of  learning. 
Ancient  history  has  been  found  to  be  not  yet  settled. 
It  is  to  be  subjected  to  common  sense.  It  is  to  be 
cross-examined.  It  is  to  be  seen  whether  its  traditions 
will  consist,  not  with  universal  belief,  but  with  universal 


CULTURE.  107 

experience.  Niebuhr  has  sifted  Roman  history  by  the 
like  methods.  Heeren  has  made  good  essays  toward 
ascertaining  the  necessary  facts  in  the  Grecian,  Persian, 
Assyrian,  Egyptian,  Ethiopic,  Carthaginian  nations. 
English  history  has  been  analysed  by  Turner,  Hallain, 
Brodie,  Palgrave.  Goethe  has  gone  the  circuit  of 
human  knowledge,  as  Lord  Bacon  did  before  him, 
writing  true  or  false  on  every  article.  Bentham  has 
attempted  the  same  scrutiny  in  reference  to  civil  law. 
Pcstalozzi,  out  of  a  deep  love,  undertook  the  reform 
of  education.  The  ambition  of  Coleridge  in  England 
embraced  the  whole  problem  of  philosophy,  to  find, 
that  is,  a  foundation  in  thought  for  everything  that 
existed  in  fact.  The  German  philosophers,  Schilling, 
Kant,  Fichte,  have  applied  tiieir  analysis  to  nature  and 
thought  with  unique  boldness.  There  can  be  no  honest 
inquiry  which  is  not  better  than  acquiescence.  Inquiries 
which  once  looked  grave  and  vital  no  doubt  change 
their  appearance  very  fast,  and  come  to  look  frivolous 
beside  the  later  queries  to  which  they  give  occasion. 
This  sceptical  activity,  at  first  directed  on  circumstances 
and  historical  views  deemed  of  great  importance,  soon 
penetrated  deeper  than  Rome  or  Egypt,  than  history  or 
institutions,  or  the  vocabulary  of  metaphysics,  namely, 
into  the  thinker  himself,  and  into  every  function  he 
exercises.  The  poetry  and  the  speculation  of  the  age 
are  marked  by  a  certain  philosophic  turn  which  dis 
criminates  them  from  the  works  of  earlier  times.  The 
poet  is  not  content  to  see  how  '  fair  hangs  the  apple 
from  the  rock,'  'what  music  a  sunbeam  awoke  in  the 
woods,'  nor  of  Ilardiknute,  how  '  stately  steppes  he 
east  the  way,  and  stately  steppes  he  west,'  but  he  now 


108  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

revolves,  What  is  the  apple  to  me?  and  what  the  birds 
to  me  ?  and  what  is  Hardiknute  to  me  ?  and  what  am 
I?" 

Through  all  this  it  is  felt  that  the  writer  is  not  one 
of  the  sceptical  phalanx  in  whose  work  he  rejoices. 
There  is  the  undertone  in  it  of  a  man  who  holds  some 
affirmation  for  which  the  way  must  be  cleared.  He 
does  not  love  the  transitional,  but  finds  in  the  motion 
promise  of  a  fairer  repose.  And  it  seems  to  me  unde 
niable  that  the  impression  which  Emerson  has  made 
upon  his  age  is  mainly  due  to  his  great  convictions. 
His  idealism  rises  like  a  rock,  almost  alone  amid  the 
waves  of  misgiving  and  doubt,  which  in  these  days 
have  covered  nearly  all  others. 

f*  I  find  from  these  early  [tapers,  as  compared  with  his 
/    collected  writings,  that  Emerson's  theology  changed  to 
/     a  spiritual  positivism,  and  then  to  a  poetical  philosophy. 
His  mental  keynote  is  in  the  first  sentence  of  his  first 
/      Essay  —  "  There  is  one  mind  common  to  all  individual 
j       men."     From  this  point  of  view  he  finds  history  to  be 
V      a  vast  expression  of  the  powers  and  passions  of  every 
heart  and  brain  ;  self-reliance  to  be  self-surrender  to 
the  Over-soul,  that  unity  within   which   every  man's 
particular  being  is  contained  and  made  one  with  all 
other.     The  essay  on  the  Over-soul  is  the  fullest  ex 
pression  which  this  central  idea  of  his  philosophy  has 
reached.     In  a  paper  in  the  "  Dial"  this  Over-soul  is 
at  first  generalised  by  him  as  ' '  the  feeling  of  the  in 
finite,"   a  semi-theological   phrase  which    passes  into 
semi-philosophic  statement.     "  Another  element  of  the 
modern  poetry,  akin  to  this   subjective  tendency,  or 
rather  the  direction  of  that  same  on  the  question  of 


CULTURE.  109 

resources,  is  the  Feeling  of  the  Infinite.  Of  the  per 
ception  now  becoming  a  conscious  fact,  —  that  there  is 
One  Mind,  and  that  all  the  powers  and  privileges  which 
lie  in  any,  lie  in  all ;  that  I  as  a  man  may  claim  and 
appropriate  whatever  of  true  or  fair  or  good  or  strong 
has  anywhere  been  exhibited ;  that  Moses  and  Con 
fucius,  Montaigne  and  Leibnitz,  are  not  so  much  indi 
viduals  as  they  are  parts  of  man  and  parts  of  me,  and 
my  intelligence  proves  them  my  own,  —  literature  is  far 
the  best  expression." 

This  "  feeling" of  the  infinite"  is  essentially  one  with 
that  "depth  of  thought,"  from  which,  as  it  more  or  less 
comes,  every  scripture  is  more  or  less  immortal,  already 
described  as  the  touchstone  with  which  Emerson  went 
among  the  great  names  of  literature.  He  finds  in  it, 
indeed,  the  dawn  of  a  coming  literature,  and  estimates 
the  writers  of  the  past  according  to  some  gleam  caught 
by  them  here  and  there  of  this  ascending  glory. 

The  poet,  by  Emerson's  estimate,  was  he  who  stood 
at  the  shining  point  where  all  things  converge  to  One. 
Fancy  may  deal  with  fragments  of  the  universe,  and 
invest  them  with  fine  conceits  ;  but  the  imagination  is 
conversant  with  the  whole,  and  sees  truth  in  universal 
relations.  The  poet  attained  by  insight  the  goal  to 
which  all  other  knowledge  is  finding  its  way,  step  b}r 
step,  and  has  anticipated  Buffon's  declaration,  "  there 
is  but  one  animal,"  and  Faraday's  faith  that  in  the  end 
there  will  be  found  but  one  clement  with  two  polarities. 
The  globule  of  blood  and  the  rolling  planet  are  one  ;  a 
little  heat  more  or  less  makes  of  a  bit  of  jelly  a  fish  or 
a  human  brain.  The  poet  was  therefore  necessarily  a 
pantheist,  and  it  looks  like  a  theological  ''survival" 


110  KMERSOX    AT   HOME    AXD    ABROAD. 

that  Emerson  did  not  recognise  the  "  authentic  fire  "  in 
Shelley.  In  Wordsworth,  with  whom  pantheism  was 
unconscious,  overpowering  his  intellectual  beliefs  —  a 
feeling  rather  than  a  philosophy  —  he  recognised  ' '  the 
great  modern  poet."  It  is  not  wonderful  that  the  poet 
of  Rydal  Mount  should  have  been  a  companion  of  those 
dreamy  walks  through  the  vales  around  Concord,  at  a 
time  when  the  young  seer's  mind  was  burgeoning  toward 
its  spring.  "The  'Excursion'  awakened  in  every 
lover  of  nature  the  right  feeling.  We  saw  stars  shine, 
we  felt  the  awe  of  mountains,  we  heard  the  rustle  of 
the  wind  in  the  grass,  and  knew  again  the  ineffable 
secret  of  solitude.  It  was  a  great  joy." 

The  exhaustive  unity  which  dominated  this  phase  of 
Emerson's  culture  found  a  happy  expression  in  his 
philosophisings  concerning  Art.  Here  also  he  begins 
with  a  statement  of  the  law  of  identity  —  a  theme  of 
which  no  other  writer  has  furnished  so  many  and  such 
exquisite  variations.  Trade,  politics,  letters,  science, 
religion,  art,  arc  the  rays  of  one  sun  ;  they  translate 
each  other's  laws  into  new  languages.  The  law  as  it 
appears  in  art  is  this :  the  Universal  Soul  is  the  alone 
creator  of  the  useful  and  the  beautiful;  therefore,  to 
make  anything  useful  or  beautiful,  the  individual  must 
be  submitted  to  the  universal  mind.  He  speaks  first  of 
the  omnipotence  of  nature  in  the  useful  arts.  "All 
powerful  action  is  performed  by  bringing  the  forces  of 
Nature  to  bear  upon  our  objects.  We  do  not  grind 
corn  or  lift  the  loom  by  our  own  strength,  but  we  build 
a  mill  in  such  a  position  as  to  set  the  north  wind  to  play 
upon  our  instrument,  or  the  elastic  force  of  steam,  or 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  sea.  So  in  our  handiwork,  we 


CULTURE.  Ill 

do  few  things  by  muscular  force,  but  we  place  ourselves 
in  such  attitudes  as  to  bring  the  force  of  gravity,  that 
is,  the  weight  of  the  planet,  to  bear  upon  the  spade  or 
the  axe  we  wield."  The  same  law  prevails  over  the 
fine  arts.  "  A  masterpiece  of  art  has  in  the  mind 
a  fixed  place  in  the  chain  of  being,  as  much  as  a  plant 
or  a  crystal."  u  The  delight  which  a  work  of  art 
affords,  seems  to  arise  from  our  recognising  in  it  the  mind 
that  formed  Nature  again  an  active  operation.  .  .  . 
Arising  out  of  eternal  reason,  one  and  perfect,  what 
ever  is  beautiful  rests  on  the  foundation  of  the  neces 
sary.  ...  In  the  mind  of  the  artist,  could  we  enter 
there,  we  should  see  the  sufficient  reason  for  the  last 
flourish  and  tendril  of  his  work,  just  as  every  tint  and 
spine  in  the  seashell  pre-exists  in  the  secreting  organs 
of  the  fish." 

After  illustrating  the  subject  by  the  discovered  origin 
of  the  Doric,  Gothic,  and  other  architectures  in  the 
characteristics  of  Nature  as  surrounding  the  peoples 
among  whom  they  arose,  the  essay  concludes  with  these 
pregnant  thoughts  :  — 

"  In  this  country,  at  this  time,  other  interests  than 
religion  and  patriotism  are  predominant,  and  the  arts, 
the  daughters  of  enthusiasm,  do  not  flourish.  The 
genuine  offspring  of  our  ruling  passions  we  behold. 
Popular  institutions,  the  school,  the  reading-room,  the 
post-office,  the  exchange,  the  insurance  company,  and 
an  immense  harvest  of  economical  inventions,  are  the 
fruit  of  the  equality  and  the  boundless  liberty  of  lucra 
tive  callings.  These  are  superficial  wants ;  and  their 
fruits  are  these  superficial  institutions.  But  as  far  as 
they  accelerate  the  end  of  political  freedom  and  na- 


112  EMEKSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

tional  education,  they  are  preparing  the  soil  of  man 
for    fairer    flowers    and    fruits    in    another    age.     For 
/  beauty,  truth,  and  goodness   are  not  obsolete ;    they 
1  spring  eternal    in   the   breast   of   man ;    they  are    as 
indigenous    in   Massachusetts    as    in  Tuscany  or   the 
Isles  of  Greece.     And  that  Eternal  Spirit  whose  triple 
face  they  are,  moulds  from  them  for  ever,  for  his  mor 
tal  child,  images  to  remind  him  of  the  Infinite  and 
Fair." 

For  some  years  after  he  had  left  the  pulpit  and 
entered  upon  the  study  of  philosophy  and  poetry, 
Emerson  did  not  conceal  his  sense  of  a  certain  friv 
olity  attaching  to  the  "  profession  of  letters."  This 
trait,  perhaps,  was  partly  hereditary.  For  seven  or 
eight  horizons  back  of  him  there  had  been  no  litera 
ture  but  what  one  part  of  the  population  preached  to 
the  other,  or,  as  he  himself  said,  "  ministers  and  min 
isters."  Even  in  Emerson's  time  the  Puritan  sus 
picion  of  intellect  remained,  and  to  be  simply  literary 
was  yet  slightly  revolutionary.  Few  of  his  admirers 
probably  would  be  satisfied  to  have  him  described  as  a 
4tman  of  letters,"  though  all  would  feel  that  his  style 
is  more  that  of  the  purely  literary  than  of  the  metaphys 
ical  class.  My  belief  is  that  from  the  time  Emerson  met 
with  the  writings  of  Walter  Savage  Landor  his  tone 
became  less  fervid  and  prophetic,  and  more  secular. 
Whatever  eccentricity  threatened  him  was  dismissed 
in  the  presence  of  the  clear  and  classic  style  of 
Landor.  There  is  something  almost  naive  in  an 
apology  for  literature  with  which  he  introduces  a 
paper  on  Landor. 

"  This  sweet   asylum  of  an   intellectual    life   must 


CULTURE.  113 

appear  to  have  the  sanction  of  nature,  so  long  as 
so  many  men  are  born  with  so  decided  an  aptitude  for 
reading  and  writing.  .  .  .  Let  us  not  be  so  illiberal 
with  our  schemes  for  the  renovation  of  society  and 
nature  as  to  disesteem  or  deny  the  literary  spirit. 
Certainly  there  are  heights  in  nature  which  command 
this ;  there  are  many  more  which  this  commands.  It 
is  vain  to  call  it  luxury,  and,  as  saints  and  reformers 
are  apt  to  do,  decry  it  as  a  species  of  day-dreaming. 
What  else  are  sanctities,  and  reforms,  and  all  other 
things?  Whatever  can  make  for  itself  an  element, 
means,  organs,  servants  and  the  most  profound  and 
permanent  existence  in  the  hearts  and  heads  of 
millions  of  men,  must  have  a  reason  for  its  being. 
Its  excellency  is  reason  and  vindication  enough.  If 
rhyme  rejoices  us,  there  should  be  rhyme,  as  much  as 
if  fire  cheers  us  we  should  bring  wood  and  coals. 
Each  kind  oT  excellence  takes  place  for  its  hour  and 
excludes  everything  else.  Do  not  brag  of  your  ac 
tions  as  if  they  were  better  than  Homer's  verses  or 
Raphael's  pictures.  Raphael  and  Homer  feel  that 
action  is  pitiful  beside  their  enchantments.  They 
could  act  too  if  the  stake  were  worthy  of  them ;  but 
now  all  that  is  good  in  the  universe  urges  them  to 
their  tasks.  Whoever  writes  for  the  love  of  truth  and 
beauty,  and  not  with  ulterior  ends,  belongs  to  this 
sacred  class." 

Of  this  class  he  regarded  Landor  as  chief  among  his 
contemporaries,  and  with  him  he  went,  as  it  were,  upon 
a  summer  excursion  into  the  land  of  letters,  somewhat 
as  he  might  in  summer  pass  a  few  weeks  with  Agassiz, 
Holmes,  and  others  in  the  Adirondack  mountains. 


114  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

"  As  it  is  not  from  the  highest  Alps  or  Andes,  but 
from  less  elevated  summits,  that  the  most  attractive 
landscape  is  commanded,  so  is  Mr.  Landor  the  most 
useful  and  agreeable  of  critics. 

"In  the  character  of  Pericles  he  has  found  full  play  for 
beauty  and  greatness  of  behaviour,  where  the  circum 
stances  are  in  harmony  with  the  man.  These  portraits, 
though  mere  sketches,  must  be  valued  as  attempts  in 
the  very  highest  kind  of  narrative,  which  not  only  has 
very  few  examples  to  exhibit  of  any  success,  but  very 
few  competitors  in  the  attempt.  The  word  Character 
is  in  all  mouths  ;  it  is  a  force  which  we  all  feel ;  yet  who 
has  analysed  it  ?  What  is  the  nature  of  that  subtle  aiidl 
majestic  principle  which  attaches  us  to  a  few  persons,  notj 
so  much  by  persons  as  by  the  most  spiritual  ties  ?  What 
is  the  quality  of  the  persons  who,  without  being  public 
men,  or  literary  men,  or  rich  men,  or  active  men, 
or  (in  the  popular  sense)  religious  men,  have  a  certain 
salutary  omnipresence  in  all  one  life's  history,  almost 
giving  their  own  quality  to  the  atmosphere  and  the 
landscape?  A  moral  force,  yet  wholly  unmindful  of 
creed  and  catechism,  intellectual,  but  scornful  of 
books,  it  works  directly  and  without  means,  and  though 
it  may  be  resisted  at  any  time,  yet  resistance  to  it  is  a 
suicide.  For  the  person  who  stands  in  this  lofty  rela 
tion  to  his  fellow-men  is  always  the  impersonation  to 
i them  of  their  conscience.  It  is  a  sufficient  proof  of 
the  extreme  delicacy  of  this  element,  evanescing 
before  any  but  the  most  sympathetic  vision,  that  it  has 
so  seldom  been  emplo}Ted  in  the  drama  and  in  novels. 
Mr.  Landor,  almost  alone  among  English  living  writ 
ers,  has  indicated  his  perception  of  it." 


4 

CULTURE.  115 

Two  early  essays,  "The  Comic"  and  "The Tragic," 
in  some  of  their  sparkling  passages  might  represent 
that  Concord  table-talk  which  so  many  remember. 
The  first  of  these  opens  with  a  paragraph  which  would 
have  made  Lavater  rub  his  eyes. 

"It  is  a  nail  of  pain  and  pleasure,  said  Plato, 
which  fastens  the  body  to  the  mind.  The  way  of  life 
is  a  line  between  the  regions  of  tragedy  and  comedy. 
I  find  few  books  so  entertaining  as  the  wistful  human 
history  written  out  in  the  faces  of  any  collection  of  men 
at  church  or  court-house.  The  silent  assembly  thus  talks 
very  loud.  The  sailor  carries  in  his  face  the  tan  of 
tropic  suns  and  the  record  of  rough  weather ;  the  old 
farmer  testifies  of  stone  walls,  rough  wood-lots,  the 
meadows,  and  the  new  barn.  The  doctor's  head  is  a 
fragrant  gallipot  of  virtues.  The  carpenter  still 
measures  feet  and  inches  with  his  eye,  and  the  licensed 
landlord  mixes  liquors  in  motionless  pantomime.  What 
good  bargains  glimmer  on  the  merchant's  aspect !  And 
if  beauty,  softness,  and  faith  in  female  forms  have  their 
influence,  vices  even,  in  slight  degree,  are  thought 
to  improve  the  expression.  Malice  and  scorn  add  to 
beauty.  You  shall  see  eyes  set  too  near,  and  limited 
faces,  faces  of  one  make  and  invariable  character. 
How  the  busy  fancy  inquires  into  their  biography  and 
relations  !  They  pique,  but  must  tire.  Compared  with 
universal  faces,  countenances  of  a  general  human  type, 
which  pique  less,  they  look  less  safe.  In  such  groups 
the  observer  does  not  think  of  heroes  and  sages.  In 
the  silentest  meeting  the  eye  reads  the  plain  prose  of 
life,  timidity,  caution,  appetite,  ignorance,  old  houses, 
musty  savours,  stationary,  retrograde  faculties  putter- 


116  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

ing  around  (to  use  the  country  phrase)  in  paltry 
routines  from  January  to  December." 

Having  laid  down  the  precincts  of  comedy,  he  main 
tains  that  whilst  a  taste  for  fun  is  nearly  universal  with 
the  human  species,  the  lower  orders  neither  do  nor 
perceive  anything  ridiculous.  Concord  has  no  zoolog 
ical  garden.  Is  it  not  certain  that  an  old  fox  or 
opossum,  an  ostrich,  an  ape,  and,  measurably,  a 
donkey ,  are  among  nature's  jokes  ? 

The  brief  paper  on  "  The  Tragic"  is  somewhat  in 
the  same  vein  with  his  essay  on  "  Fate."  He  regards 
the  tragical  elements  of  life  and  nature  as  superficial 
and  transient.  The  bitterest  of  them  are  derived  from 
a  belief  in  a  brute  fate  —  that  the  order  of  nature  is 
controlled  by  a  law  not  adapted  to  man,  nor  man  to 
that,  but  which  holds  on  its  way  to  the  end,  serving 
him  if  his  wishes  chance  to  lie  in  the  same  course, 
crushing  him  if  his  wishes  lie  contrary  to  it,  and  heed 
less  whether  it  serves  or  crushes  him.  "  This  is  the 
terrible  idea  that  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  old 
dreek  tragedy,  and  makes  CEdipus  and  Antigone  and 
Orestes  objects  of  such  hopeless  commiseration.  They 
must  perish,  and  there  is  no  over-god  to  stop  or  to  mol 
lify  this  hideous  enginery  that  grinds  or  thunders,  and 
takes  them  up  into  its  terrific  system."  In  all  this, 
penalties  are  not  grounded  on  the  nature  of  things,  but 
on  arbitrary  will ;  or,  indeed,  this  destiny  is  not  will 
at  all,  but  an  immense  whim.  It  is  discriminated  from 
the  doctrine  of  philosophical  necessity  in  that  the 
last  is  an  optimism,  wherein  the  sufferer  finds  his 
good  consulted  in  the  good  of  all  of  which  he  is  a 
part.  The  old  idea  of  fate  disappears  with  civili- 


CULTURE.  117 

sation,  and  so  the  antique  tragedy  can  never  be  re 
produced. 

"Time,  the  consoler,  time,  the  rich  carrier  of  all 
changes,  dries  the  freshest  tears  by  obtruding  new 
figures,  new  costumes,  new  roads,  on  our  eye,  new 
voices  on  our  ear.  .  .  .  Nature  will  not  sit  still ;  the 
faculties  will  do  somewhat ;  new  hopes  spring,  new 
affections  twine,  and  the  broken  is  whole  again.  .  .  . 
The  intellect  is  a  consoler,  which  delights  in  detaching 
or  putting  an  interval  between  a  man  and  his  fortune, 
and  so  converts  the  sufferer  into  a  spectator,  and  his 
pain  into  poetry.  It  yields  the  joys  of  conversation, 
of  letters,  and  of  science.  Hence  also  the  torments 
of  life  become  tuneful  tragedy,  solemn  and  soft  with 
music,  and  garnished  with  rich  dark  pictures.  But 
higher  still  than  the  activities  of  art,  the  intellect  in 
its  purity,  and  the  moral  sense  in  its  purity,  are  not 
distinguished  from  each  other,  and  both  ravish  us  into 
a  region  whereinto  these  passionate  clouds  of  sorrow 
cannot  rise." 

Goethe  harmonised  with  Emerson's  innate  optimism, 
with  the  disposition  implied  in  it  of  looking  upon  con 
ventional  society  with  the  eye  of  a  naturalist  rather 
than  that  of  a  moralist.  The  devil  became  a  fossil 
monster  for  Emerson  when  Goethe  appeared  with  his 
sparkling  wickedness.  Emerson's  optimism  was  a 
zenith  to  the  Puritan  nadir,  which  held  that  "  the  earth 
is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof"  in  a  sense  that 
would  change  space  to  a  meeting-house  and  eternity  to 
a  Sabbath-daymare.  It  is  interesting  to  compare  his 
first  and  later  criticisms  upon  Goethe.  A  letter  to 
Carlyle  (1834)  shows  him  scandalised  by  Goethe's 


118  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

velvet  life.  But  Goethe  "  held  him  with  his  glittering 
eye,"  and  his  first  great  effort  in  German  was  reading 
Goethe's  fifty-five  volumes.  Emerson  came  to  care 
more  for  the  quantity  than  the  quality  of  what  he  could 
gain  from  any  teacher. 

"  To  look  at  him  (Goethe)  one  would  say  there  never 
was  an  observer  before.  What  sagacity,  what  industry 
of  observation !  To  read  his  record  is  a  frugality  of 
time,  for  you  shall  find  no  word  that  does  not  stand  for 
a  thing  ;  and  he  is  of  that  comprehension  which  can 
see  the  value  of  truth.  His  love  of  Nature  has  seemed  J 
to  give  a  new  meaning  to  that  word.  There  was  never  1 
man  more  domesticated  in  this  world  than  he.  ...  If 
we  try  Goethe  by  the  ordinary  canons  of  criticism,  we 
should  say  that  his  thinking  is  of  great  altitude  and  all 
level ;  not  a  succession  of  summits,  but  a  high  Atlantic 
tableland.  Dramatic  power,  the  rarest  talent  in  liter 
ature,  he  has  very  little.  He  has  an  eye  constant  to 
the  fact  of  life,  and  that  never  pauses  in  its  advance. 
But  the  great  felicities,  the  miracles  of  poetry,  he  has 
never.  It  is  all  design  with  him,  just  thought  and  in 
structed  expression,  analogies,  allusion,  illustration, 
which  knowledge  and  correct  thinking  supply  ;  but  of 
Shakespeare  and  the  transcendent  Muse  no  syllable. 
.  .  .  Poetry  is  with  Goethe  thus  external,  the  gilding 
of  the  chain,  the  mitigation  of  his  fate  ;  but  the  Muse 
never  assays  those  thunder-tones  which  cause  to  vibrate 
the  sun  and  moon,  which  dissipate  by  dreadful  melody 
all  this  iron  network  of  circumstance,  and  abolish  the 
old  heavens  and  the  old  earth  before  the  free-will  and 
godhead  of  man."  Jit 

There  are  many  references  to  Goethe  in  Emerson's 


CULTURE.  119 

writings,  and  ever  and  again,  when  his  moral  mood 
has  revolted,  he  returns  almost  like  a  penitent. 
"After  taxing  Goethe  as  a  courtier,  artificial,  unbe 
lieving,  worldly,  I  took  up  this  book  of  'Helena,' 
and  found  him  an  Indian  of  the  wilderness,  a  piece  of 
pure  nature,  like  an  apple  or  an  oak,  large  as  morning 
or  night,  and  virtuous  as  a  brier-rose."  Finally,  in 
"  Representative  Men,"  he  stereot3'pes  his  judgment. 
"  Goethe  can  never  be  dear  to  men."  "  He  has  not 
worshipped  the  highest  unity ;  he  is  incapable  of  a 
self-surrender  to  the  moral  sentiment."  But!  "The 
old  Eternal  Genius  who  built  the  world  has  confided 
himself  more  to  this  man  than  to  any  other." 

The  burden  of  his  prophecy  was  on  Emerson's 
shoulders.  Goethe  had  to  create  his  New  World  out 
of  his  brain  by  magic  art,  and  mount  it  on  a  stage 
tricked  out  in  unyielding  walls  of  a  fortress.  Emer 
son  is  resolved  that  the  poetry  of  the  Old  shall  be  the 
reality  of  the  New  World.  He  means  that  the  pictures 
of  Raphael  and  Goethe  shall  sink  to  studies  of  what  is 
to  breathe  and  live  in  America. 

The  influence  of  Swedenborg  upon  the  mind  of  Em 
erson  is  phenomenal.  The  lecture  upon  the  Mystic  in 
"Representative  Men  "  suggests  that  he  had  placed  too 
much  faith  in  the  exaggerated  claims  for  Swedeuborg's 
scientific  work  put  forth  by  enthusiastic  writers.  Hav 
ing  accepted  their  interpretations,  e.g.,  that  Sweden- 
borg's  allusion  to  seven  planets  was  a  prediction  of 
Uranus  instead  of  a  bit  of  astrology,  Emerson  was 
prepared  to  welcome  a  man  who  justified  the  office  of 
the  Seer  by  making  more  happy  discoveries  with  his 
scientific  eyes  shut  (itveui,)  than  when  they  were  open. 


120  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

T-ikiiig  a  general  view  of  Swedenborg's  life,  nothing 
could  more  completely  foreshadow  the  ideal  man  of 
Emerson:  a  powerful  brain,  whose  first  outgrowth  is 
a  trunk  of  practical  science,  and  whose  last  fruit 
has  converted  all  that  trunk  and  its  roots  to  vis 
ions.  Here,  at  any  rate,  was  the  hint  and  dim  out 
line  of  a  man.  He  was  much  charmed  by  the  ingenious 
writers  —  Dr.  Garth  Wilkinson  in  London,  and  Samp 
son  Reed  in  America  —  who  had  adapted  Swedenborg 
to  modern  culture.  He  wrote  to  Carlyle  in  the  early 
years  of  their  friendship  about  Swedenborg,  at  th 
same  time  deprecating  his  Hebraism  and  mechanica 
theism.  Carlyle  mentioned  this  to  me,  and  added 
"  I  speedily  discovered  that  Swedenborg  was  mad  and 
gave  him  up."  In  the  end,  the  Swedenborgians  would 
have  been  glad  if  Emerson  had  done  the  same.  Noth 
ing  troubled  them  more  than  his  lecture,  fourteen  years 
later,  on  "  Swedenborg,  the  Mystic."  It  was  a  splen 
did  epitaph  on  that  sect.  Nevertheless,  it  remains  true 
that  Emerson  was  the  first  to  discover  the  place  of 
Swedenborg  in  nature, — the  ages  of  tradition  that 
revealed  their  force  and  direction  in  his  evolution. 
"  He  is  the  last  Father  in  the  Church,  and  is  not  likely 
to  have  a  successor."  He  had  carried  the  deity  of 
Christ,  miracle,  angelolatry,  demonology,  revelation, 
to  that  extreme  point  that  they  became  dying  confes 
sions  of  the  Christian  system.  "  Nature  reveals  her 
secrets  in  monsters,"  said  Goethe :  Emerson,  as  a 
spiritual  naturalist,  found  similar  revelations  in  the 
monstrosities  of  Swedenborg  —  keys  to  the  discredite 
spiritual  mythology. 

On  Emerson's  new  horizon,  Carlyle,  the  secre 


i  the 
sditedll 

tsu^^* 


CULTURE.  121 

his  "art  and  mystery"  gained,  appeared  an  English 
Prometheus,  resolved  to  bear  to  men  the  fire  which  the 
Teutonic  deities  were  reserving  to  themselves.  His 
brave  effort  to  animate  the  cold  still  forms  of  trade 
and  politics  was  an  irresistible  appeal  to  Emerson  ;  and 
in  a  paper  he  wrote  on  the  appearance  of  "  Past  and 
Present "  there  is  the  prophecy  of  Carlyle's  career  and 
the  omen  of  revolutions  now  historical.  This  paper  of 
seven  pages  is  not  so  much  a  criticism  as  a  happy  cele 
bration,  the  principal  theme  of  which  is  admiration  at 
the  generosity  of  the  thinker  who  had  addressed  him 
self  to  a  great  human  task,  with,  however,  a  sharp 
touch  here  and  there  on  that  thinker's  faults. 

"Here  is  Carlyle's  new  poem,  his  Iliad  of  English 
woes,  to  follow  his  poem  on  France,  entitled  the  '  His 
tory  of  the  French  Revolution.'  In  its  first  aspect  it 
is  a  political  traqf,  and  since  Burke,  since  Milton,  wTe 
have  had  nothii||  to  compare  with  it.  It  grapples 
honestly  with  the  facts  lying  before  all  men,  and  with  a 
heart  full  of  manly  tenderness  offers  his  best  counsel 
to  his  brothers.  ...  It  is  not  by  sitting  still  at  a  grand 
distance  and  calling  the  human  race  laruce  that  men  are 
to  be  helped,  nor  by  helping  the  depraved  after  their 
own  foolish  fashion,  but  by  doing  unweariedly  the  work 
we  were  born  to  do." 

4 '  It  requires  great  courage  in  a  man  of  letters  to 
handle  the  contemporary  practical  questions,  not  be 
cause  he  then  has  all  men  for  his  rivals,  but  because  of 
the  infinite  entanglements  of  the  problem,  and  the 
waste  of  strength  in  gathering  unripe  fruits.  The 
task  i^»perhuman,  and  the  poet  knows  well  that  a 
little  time  will  do  more  than  the  most  puissant  genius." 


122  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

He  expresses  frankly  his  sense  of  a  fault  in  Carlyle's 
"Past  and  Present."  The  picture  is  over-coloured, 
lacks  universality,  the  tone  exaggerated ;  it  is  not 
serene  sunshine,  but  everything  is  seen  in  lurid  storm- 
lights.  "  One  can  hardly  credit,  whilst  under  the  spell 
of  this  magician,  .that  the  world  had  always  the  same 
bankrupt  look  to  foregoing  ages  as  to  us  —  as  of  a 
failed  world  just  recollecting  its  old  withered  forces  to 
begin  again  and  try  to  do  a  little  business.  .  .  .  Each 
age  has  its  own  follies,  as  its  majority  is  made  up  of 
foolish  young  people  ;  its  superstitions  appear  no  super 
stitions  to  itself;  and  if  you  should  ask  the  contem 
porary,  he  would  tell  you  with  pride  or  with  regret 
(according  as  he  was  practical  or  poetic)  that  it  had 
none.  But  after  a  short  time,  down  go  its  follies  and 
weakness,  and  the  memory  of  them ;  its  virtues  alone 
remain,  and  its  limitation  assumes  the  form  of  a  beau 
tiful  superstition,  as  the  dimness  ojpour  sight  clothes 
the  objects  in  the  horizon  with  mist  and  colour.  The 
Revelation  of  Reason  is  this  of  the  uuchangeableness 
of  the  fact  of  humanity  under  all  its  subjective  aspects, 
that  to  the  cowering  it  always  cowers,  to  the  daring  it 
opens  great  avenues.  The  ancients  are  only  venerable 
to  us  because  distance  has  destroyed  what  was  trivial, 
as  the  sun  and  stars  affect  us  only  grandly  because  we 
cannot  reach  to  their  smoke  and  their  surfaces  and  say, 
Is  that  all?" 

In  private,  Emerson  remonstrated  with  Carlyle  about 
his  style  of  writing,  and  I  gathered  from  his  conversa 
tion  that  he  never  quite  recovered  from  the  shock  of 
"  Sartor,"  nor  valued  that  book  so  highly  as  hyjfricuds 
did.  It  took  all  his  optimism  to  adapt  hiuiselPto  his 


CULTURE.  123 

friend's  "clothes,"  but  it  was  achieved.  "  We  have 
never  had  anything  in  literature  so  like  earthquakes  as 
the  laughter  of  Carlyle.  He  '  shakes  with  his  moun 
tain  mirth.'  It  is  like  the  laughter  of  the  genii  in  the 
horizon.  These  jokes  shake  down  Parliament-house, 
and  Windsor  Castle,  temple,  and  tower,  and  the  future 
shall  echo  the  dangerous  peals.  The  other  particular 
of  his  magnificence  is  in  his  rhymes.  Carlyle  is  a  poet 
who  is  altogether  too  burly  in  his  frame  and  habit  to 
submit  to  the  limits  of  metre.  Yet  he  is  full  of  rhythm, 
not  only  in  the  perpetual  melody  of  his  periods,  but  in 
the  burdens,  refrains,  and  grand  returns  of  his  sense 
and  music.  Whatever  thought  or  motto  has  once  ap 
peared  to  him  fraught  with  meaning,  becomes  an  omen 
to  him  henceforward,  and  is  sure  to  return  with  deeper 
tones  and  weightier  import,  now  as  promise,  now  as 
threat,  now  as  confirmation,  in  gigantic  reverberation, 
as  if  the  hills,  the  korizon,  and  the  next  ages  returned 
the  sound." 

Probably  the  most  lasting  influence  of  Carlyle  upon 
Emerson  was  derived  from  his  political  writings,  which 
quickened  in  him  the  feeling  of  the  practical  relation 
of  his  genius  to  his  age  and  country.  The  creed  of 
the  Puritans,  that  the  worker  must  think,  the  thinker 
must  work,  revived  in  his  perception  that  literature  is  a 
blossom  that  must  pass  away  unless  fulfilled  in  fruit. 

In  the  first  discoverable  scrap  of  Emerson's  writing 
there  is  found  nearly  the  same  literary  style  as  in  his 
last.  The  only  authors  whose  influence  seems  trace 
able  in  it  are  Shakespeare  and  Montaigne  ;  and  one 
may  remember  that  Montaigne's  Essays  is  the  only  book 
known  to  have  been  in  the  library  of  Shakespeare.  If 


124  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

one  should  first  meet  in  an  essay  by  Emerson  such 
sentences  as,  "  Spirits  are  not  finely  touched  but  to 
fine  issues,"  or  "  Nature  is  helped  by  no  mean,  but 
nature  makes  that  mean" — it  would  hardly  make  one 
pause.  In  his  lecture  on  Montaigne,  Emerson  says, 
"  A  single  odd  volume  of  Cotton's  translation  of  the 
Essays  remained  to  me  from  my  father's  library  when  a 
boy.  It  lay  long  neglected,  until,  after  many  years, 
when  I  was  newly  escaped  from  college,  I  read  the  book 
and  procured  the  remaining  volumes.  I  remember  the 
delight  and  wonder  in  which  I  lived  with  it.  It  seemed 
to  me  as  if  I  had  myself  written  the  book  in  some 
former  life,  so  sincerely  it  spoke  to  my  thought  and 
experience." 

There  is,  however,  a  felicity  about  Emerson's  ex 
pression  such  as  is  hinted  in  a  note  he  wrote  on  verses 
sent  to  the  "Dial"  by  Wentworth  Higginson  in  his 
youth:  "They  have  truth  and  earnestness,  and  a 
happier  hour  may  add  that  external  perfection  which 
can  neither  be  commanded  nor  described."  The 
nearest  parallel  is  in  the  authentic  utterances  found  in 
the  bibles  of  the  world.  Emerson  was  among  the 
earliest  students  of  Oriental  scriptures,  from  which 
some  of  the  finest  passages  were  inserted  in  the 
"Dial."  In  the  paper  which  we  have  been  mainly 
reading,  "  Thoughts  on  Literature,"  he  writes  :  "  The 
Bible  is  the  most  original  book  in  the  world.  This  old 
collection  of  the  ejaculations  of  love  and  dread,  of  the 
supreme  desires  and  contritions  of  men,  proceeding 
out  of  the  region  of  the  grand  and  eternal,  by  whatso 
ever  different  mouths  spoken,  and  through  a  wide 
extent  of  times  and  countries,  seems,  especially  if  you 


CULTURE.-  125 

add  to  our  canon  the  kindred  sacred  writings  of  the 
Hindoos,  Persians,  and  Greeks,  the  alphabet  of  the 
nations.'* 

In  reading  these  critical  judgments,  one  may  recognise 
that  Emerson  had  at  a  very  early  age  liberated  himself 
from  all  authorities.  In  his  first  lecture  at  Harvard 
University  (1837)  he  said  :  "  Meek  young  men  grow  up 
in  libraries,  believing  it  their  duty  to  accept  the  views 
which  Cicero,  which  Locke,  winch  Bacon  have  given, 
forgetful  that  Cicero,  Locke,  and  Bacon  were  only 
young  men  in  libraries  when  they  wrote  these  books." 
In  this  spirit  he  gathered  up  the  literature  of  the  past 
into  himself,  but  it  was  transmuted  into  his  own  life  by 
his  own  experience.  Herman  Grimm  ("  National 
Zeitung,"  June  11,  1882)  finds  a  resemblance  in  Emer 
son  to  Shakespeare  in  "  the  precision  with  which, 
especially  in  illustration,  he  draws  from  his  own  experi 
ence,  without  caring  to  go  beyond  it."  And  in  reading 
or  hearing  his  sentences  on  men  and  books,  I  have  felt 
that  they  were  not  literary  criticism  but  spiritual 
biography.  The  finest  writing  was  worse  than  wasted 
on  Emerson  unless  it  advanced  some  actuality  a  point 
farther.  He  would  forgive  endless  weeds  where  he 
found  one  sesame  that  could  open  any  closed  door,  but 
cared  not  for  the  most  felicitous  amplifications.  It  is 
not  in  an  ordinary  sense  that  Emerson  can  be  described 
as  a  literary  man  at  all.  In  books  he  valued  so  much 
as  was  not  book  but  man,  and  could  be  so  proved  by 
assimilation  in  another  man.  That  writer  who  had 
helped  him  was  the  writer  he  could  report  about.  Not 
that  his  spirit  was,  "  Save  most  of  men  Count  Gis- 
mond,  who  saved  me  !"  But  he  knew  the  danger  of  a 


126  EMERSON  AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

counterfeit ;  he  would  never  pronounce  a  thing  true 
gold  which  had  not  rung  on  his  counter,  nor  any  cur 
rency  sound  which  he  had  not  actually  converted  into 
the  substance  of  life.  "Cut  these  words  and  they 
would  bleed,"  he  says  of  Montaigne.  Emerson's 
literary  estimates  are  sometimes  surprising ;  but  his 
task  lay  in  a  realm  where  "  the  perfection  of  man  is 
the  love  of  use  ;  "  and  where  words  are  known  only  as 
they  are  made  flesh,  and  estimated  by  experience  of 
their  creative  power. 


EAGLE   AND   DOVE.  127 


XII. 
EAGLE  AND  DOVE. 

ON  a  beautiful  day  I  was  walking  with  Emerson  in 
a  wood  near  Concord.  It  was  in  one  of  my  early 
months  at  Divinity  College,  —  a  period  of  painful  rec 
ollections  of  my  once  comfortable  little  Egypt,  left  for 
poverty,  loneliness,  and  a  spiritual  wilderness.  He 
had  questioned  me  about  our  studies  up  at  Cambridge, 
and  our  experiences,  and  brought  upon  himself  an  out 
pouring  of  crude  questionings  and  blank  misgivings 
about  the  universe.  He  listened  with  a  patience  I  now 
see  to  be  divine.  After  a  silence,  and  a  few  sympathetic 
words,  he  paused  and  exclaimed,  "Ah!  there  is  one 
of  the  gods  of  the  wood  !  "  I  looked  and  saw  nothing  ; 
then  turned  to  him  and  followed  his  glance,  but  still 
beheld  nothing  unusual.  He  was  looking  with  a 
beaming  eye  along  the  path  that  lay  before  us  through 
a  thicket.  "Where?  "I  asked.  "Did  you  see  it?" 
he  said,  now  moving  on.  "  No,  I  saw  nothing  —  what 
was  it?"  "  No  matter,"  said  he  gently.  I  repeated 
my  question,  but  he  still  said  smilingly,  "  Never  mind 
if  you  did  not  see  it."  I  was  a  little  piqued,  but  said 
no  more,  and  very  soon  was  listening  to  discourse 
which  obliterated  anxieties  about  the  absolute.  The 
incident  was  never  alluded  to  again,  and  it  was  long 


128  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

before  I  knew  what  god  of  the  woods  Emerson  then 
surprised,  which  I  saw  not. 

Many  have  learned,  with  George  Meredith  — • 

u  What  a  dusty  answer  gets  the  soul 
When  hot  for  certainties  in  this  our  life." 

But  it  is  the  characteristic  of  our  time  that  the  certain 
ties  are  hotter  after  mortals  than  these  are  for  the  cer 
tainties.  Some  of  us  who  have  known  the  bitterness 
of  seeing  the  old  stars  of  faith  go  down,  as  we  were 
wandering  through  the  dark  wolds  of  early  life,  have 
been  guided  from  it  by  the  tones  of  Concordia  (to 
remember  Schiller's  "Bell")  ;  but  we  may  not  have 
considered  or  remembered  through  what  fires  and  hard 
blows  Concordia  had  to  pass  ere  it  gained  that  pure 
voice  in  which  the  stars  that  had  set  rose  again  in  our 
heart  and  sang  together  for  joy.  It  is  difficult  to 
associate  anything  but  happiness  with  Emerson ;  but 
Heine's  fact  stands,  Wherever  genius  is,  there  is  Gol 
gotha.  When  Emerson  hacT  gone  to  dwell  in  Concord, 
and  when,  on  the  two-hundredth  anniversary  of  the 
settlement  of  the  town  by  his  ancestors,  he  built  their 
bones  into  the  poetic  monument  already  described,  the 
faith  in  which  they  had  so  nobly  wrought  was  to  him 
the  place  of  a  skull.  Scepticism  was  not  in  his  tem 
perament  ;  he  was  a  born  believer ;  his  eye  was  made 
for  ineffable  visions  ;  yet  the  fatal  shaft  of  criticism 
had  reached  the  vulnerable  point,  —  his  intellectual 
veracity,  —  and  there  remained  not  a  rack  of  the  an 
cient  deities  or  heavens. 

Residing  with  his  prayerful  mother,  in  the  home  of 
the  venerable  minister  in  whom  the  pious  traditions  of 


EAGLE    AND    DOVE.  129 

his  race  are  all  embodied,  what  sees  that  walking  eye 
ball  with  no  past  at  his  back? 

"As  men's  prayers  are  a  disease  of  the  will,  so  are 
their  creeds  a  disease  of  the  intellect." 

"  The  faith  that  stands  on  authority  is  not  faith." 

"The  word  Miracle,  as  pronounced  by  Christian 
churches,  gives  a  false  impression :  it  is  Monster." 

' '  The  prayers  and  even  the  dogmas  of  our  Church 
are  like  the  zodiac  of  Denderah,  and  the  astronomical 
monuments  of  the  Hindoos, — wholly  insulated  from 
anything  now  extant  in  the  life  and  business  of  the 
people." 

"The  Puritans  in  England  and  America  found  in 
the  Christ  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  in  the  dogmas 
inherited  from  Rome,  scope  for  their  austere  piety  and 
their  longings  for  civil  freedom.  But  their  creed  is 
passing  away,  and  none  arises  in  its  room." 

"  Christianity  became  a  my  thus,  as  the  poetic  teach 
ing  of  Greece  and  of  Egypt  before." 

"The  secret  of  heaven  is  kept  from  age  to  age. 
No  imprudent,  no  sociable  angel  ever  dropt  an  early 
syllable  to  answer  the  longings  of  saints,  the  fears 
of  mortals." 

"  The  popular  notion  of  a  revelation  is  that  it  is  a 
telling  of  fortunes." 

"These  questions  which  we  lust  to  ask  about  the 
future  are  a  confession  of  sin." 

In  the  Wiertz  Museum  at  Brussels  is  pictured  a 
maiden  gazing  on  her  own  skeleton  ;  these  denials 
show  the  skeleton  supplanting  a  form  painted  with  the 
colours  of  faith  over  its  shrivelled  skin.  But  what 
does  all  this  mean  for  a  young,  believing,  loving,  and 


130  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

truthful  genius  like  that  of  Emerson  ?  for  a  genius  with 
the  world  in  its  winged  heart?  It  means  Milton  sud 
denly  brought  down  from  his  celestial  paradise  to  a 
small  prosaic  solitude. 

Goethe's  fable  tells  the  near  result.  As  the  eagle 
soared,  the  huntsman's  dart  pierced  its  right  wing  and 
brought  it  to  the  ground.  The  wound  was  healed,  but 
alas  !  the  power  to  soar  was  gone.  Now  from  the  earth, 
pining,  he  can  only  look  up  to  the  far  heaven,  his  haughty 
eye  filled  with  a  tear.  A  dove  beholds  his  sorrow,  and, 
turning  for  a  moment  from  its  mate,  flutters  to  the 
next  bush.  "Cheer  up,  my  friend,"  it  says  sweetly  to 
the  wounded  king  ;  "see  how  near  thee  are  the  sources 
of  tranquil  bliss.  On  the  brook's  mossy  brink  thy 
heart  can  meet  the  sunset  splendours.  Amid  the  dewy 
flowers  thou  shalt  find  delicate  food.  At  the  crystal 
fountain  thy  thirst  may  be  quenched.  O  friend !  the 
sweet  spirit  of  content  gives  all  we  know  of  happiness, 
and  finds  everywhere  its  food."  The  eagle,  its  lofty 
eye  turned  now  to  the  myrtle  grove  where  it  had  fallen, 
then  into  itself,  said,  "O  wisdom,  ever  thou  speakest 
as  a  dove !  " 

Smitten  down  from  his  pulpit  by  the  arrow  that  flieth 
by  day,  exiled  from  the  apocalyptic  city  of  God  —  how 
ever  radiant  in  the  visions  of  Dante  and  Milton  —  Em 
erson,  with  broken  wing,  still  gazed  on  the  ancient 
heavens.  Nay,  as  we  have  seen,  he  flutters  away  to 
Highgate,  Rydal  Mount,  Craigenputtock,  seeking  some 
helpful  strength  by  which  he  may  rise.  "Believe  in 
the  Trinity!"  cried  Coleridge.  "Beware  of  your 
intellect !  "  warned  Wordsworth.  "  No  step  thither 
ward  can  be  taken!"  said  Carl  vie.  Back,  then,  to 


EAGLE    AND   DOVE.  131 

Concord  !  Back,  with  however  heavy  a  heart,  to  listen 
to  what  the  dove  may  say  at  the  door  of  the  Old 
Manse ! 

As  over  the  chaos  of  crumbled  beliefs  this  sweet 
spirit  brooded,  there  arose  an  Eden  which  turned  the 
visions,  from  Patmos  to  Rydal  Mount,  into  mere  fables 
of  its  eternal  beauty.  Those  negations  quoted  above 
are  merest  thorns,  which  Emerson  pruned  away  from 
his  roses,  that  needed  no  guard  but  his  love  to  garner 
the  dawns  in  that  garden.  Every  essential  doc 
trine  of  every  system  deemed  religious  receives  its 
sentence.  Read  in  their  context,  the  negations  are 
shades  setting  forth  glorious  forms  of  affirmation ; 
they  are  discords  that  die  in  raising  the  heart  to  har 
monies  ;  they  are  serpents  summoned  only  to  deliver 
up  the  fruits  of  wisdom  to  him  whose  heel  their  head 
sustains.  He  has  found  the  immortality  that  is  not 
postponed ;  he  prays  the  prayer  that  is  always 
answered  ;  he  meets  a  god  in  every  bush.  His  joy  now 
looks  back  upon  the  former  heaven  as  a  prison.  He 
has  learned  why  nature  denied  man  wings,  and  takes 
care  that  when  devised  they  shall  melt  or  be  broken  — 
even  that  he  may  soar. 


132  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 


XIII. 
DAILY  BREAD. 

SIR  RALPH  EMERSON  in  Yorkshire,  if  a  true 
ancestor,  would  never  have  been  prouder  of  the 
lions  on  his  shield,  had  he  foreseen  "  Thomas  Emerson, 
Baker,"  on  the  front  of  that  house  in  New  England 
where  the  American  family  was  founded.  This  gentle 
man,  reared  under  chivalrous  traditions,  finds  himself 
in  a  wild  settlement  of  his  fellows,  and  recognises  be 
side  u  Labour- in-vain  Creek  "  the  dragon  he  is  to  slay0 
Barrenness  he  is  to  conquer,  swamp  he  is  to  clear.,  He 
is  the  best-educated  man  there,  and  well-to-do  ;  he  sees 
a  thing  needed  —  wholesome  wheaten  bread  ;  and  into 
bread  he  converts  a  large  quantity  of  dust  and  mud. 
When  his  monument  is  built,  let  his  coat  of  arms  be 
carved  quartered  with  a  loaf,  over  the  words,  "He 
made  bread  for  men  in  the  wilderness."  And  the 
words  of  his  great  descendant  might  be  added,  "•  Real 
service  will  not  lose  its  nobleness." 

Two  centuries  later  the  same  English  knighthood, 
its  plume  changed  to  a  pen,  its  badge  to  an  invisible 
charm,  is  found  in  Concord,  giving  to  the  settlers  of  an 
ideal  world  their  daily  bread.  Nor  was  he  in  this  less 
cheerful  and  earnest  because  it  was  a  world  small  and 
lowly,  so  far  as  then  visible.  From  the  first  Emerson 


DAILY    BREAD.  133 

had  shown  himself  remarkably  free  from  ambition  for 
public  position,  his  eagerness  being  apparent  where 
individual  minds  were  concerned.  Of  spiritual  com 
panionship  in  Concord,  when  he  first  went  to  reside 
there,  he  found  very  little  ;  and,  much  as  he  loved 
solitude,  he  longed  ardently  for  intellectual  communion. 
He  pleaded  with  Carlyle  very  earnestly  to  come  to 
New  England,  as  we  have  seen,  but  in  vain.  The  great 
lesson  of  self-reliance  which  he  was  to  teach,  he  now 
learned  in  all  its  depths.  One  of  its  most  important 
instructions  was  that  others  were  essentially  like  him 
self  —  or  were  himself.  They  would  transmute  the 
same  ideas  and  truths,  if  given  them,  as  they  did  the 
same  bread  and  fruit  into  protoplasm.  If  he  should 
show  these  humble  country-folk  what  was  in  his  heart, 
would  they  receive  it  ?  could  the}'  ?  The  question  was 
no  sooner  asked  than  answered. 

Emerson  was  under  the  necessity  of  earning  his  own 
daily  bread,  but  felt  no  anxiety  on  that  score.  His 
lectures  paid  only  an  average  of  four  pounds  each,  but 
that,  forty-seven  years  ago,  was  enough  to  secure  him 
what  he  most  needed  just  then,  a  year  or  two  of  free 
dom  for  poise  before  descending  on  his  object.  He 
used  to  speak  of  it  as  leisure,  but  in  the  years  1834 
and  1835  he  gave  twenty-two  lectures  in  Boston,  the 
subjects  being  "Water,"  "  The  Relations  of  Man  to 
the  Globe,"  "  Italy  (2),"  "  The  Means  of  Inspiring  a 
Taste  for  English  Literature,"  "  Biography,"  "Burke," 
"  Michael  Angelo,"  "Luther,"  "George  Fox,"  "Eng 
lish  Literature  (10)."  He  generally  wrote  these  lec 
tures  out  in  the  week  they  were  delivered.  He  also 
wrote  some  of  his  best  poems  about  this  time.  He  was 


134  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

perfectly  conscious  that  there  was  a  field  golden  with 
its  harvest  before  him,  and  that  his  sickle  was  able  to 
reap  it.  He  deliberately  prepared  himself  for  the  work. 
He  studied  the  works  and  lives  of  the  men  and  women 
who  had  made  revolutions  —  Socrates  and  Plato,  Plo- 
tinus,  St.  Augustine,  Dante,  Luther,  George  Fox, 
Behmen,  Swedenborg,  Tauler,  Bacon,  Newton,  Goethe. 
And  meanwhile  he  kept  up  his  habit  of  teaching  the 
people,  and  of  sedulously  attending  to  every  individual 
whom  his  thought  drew  to  him. 

Emerson  found  near  Concord  (namely,  at  East  Lex 
ington)  a  congregation  which  dearly  loved  to  listen  to 
him,  and  would  have  dispensed  with  any  forms  what 
ever  to  have  him  settle  with  them.  But  this  he  would 
not  do.  He  used  to  drive  out  there  from  Concord  to 
preach  to  them  on  Sundays.  This  was  while  he  was 
giving  his  earliest  lectures  in  Boston,  which  so  many 
declared  incomprehensible.  Emerson  never  lowered 
his  statement  for  any  audience  ;  he  prepared  for  the 
Lexington ians  as  if  they  were  an  assembly  of  Oxoni 
ans.  Lexington  understood  him  well  enough.  Eliza 
beth  Peabody  told  me  that  an  humble  woman  there, 
asked  whether  they  meant  to  settle  a  preacher,  replied, 
"We  are  very  simple  people  here,  and  don't  understand 
anybody  but  Mr.  Emerson." 

A  youth  whose  unfolding  mind  had  attracted  him 
was  invited  from  Boston  to  pass  some  days  at  the  Old 
Manse,  and  has  told  me  of  his  great  happiness  in 
driving  with  Emerson  over  to  East  Lexington,  where 
he  heard  him  preach  on  a  Sunday  morning.  On  the 
way  Emerson  repeated  George  Herbert's  hymn,  "Sweet 
day,  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright."  It  would  seem  a 


DAILY   BREAD.  135 

sufficient  end  of  life  to  pass  such  a  morning  in  the 
morning  time  of  life  ;  and,  for  his  young  friend,  that 
sweet  day  has  never  set. 

The  discourses  which  Emerson  gave  these  simple  peo 
ple  were  the  same  he  had  given  in  Boston,  and,  as  he  told 
me,  many  of  them  re-appear  in  substance  in  his  volumes. 
But  he  found  the  country  congregation  more  open  to 
any  innovations  he  saw  fit  to  make  in  the  services.  As 
we  have  seen,  he  could  no  longer  conform  to  the  usage 
of  formal  prayer.  A  friend  told  me  that  about  this 
time  he  heard  him  give  a  discourse  on  the  text,  "  Pray 
without  ceasing."  The  burden  of  it  was  that,  when 
prayer  was  real,  whatever  men  prayed  for  they  re 
ceived.  If  the  prayer  were  unreal,  a  petition  for  what 
was  against  the  nature  of  things,  there  could  ba  no  heart 
in  it,  and  no  faith  ;  but  if  it  were  the  genuine  aspira 
tion  of  the  whole  nature,  it  would  be  the  unceasing 
aim,  and  desire,  and  effort  of  the  life,  and  that  prayer 
would  move  on  to  its  answer  and  fulfilment.  "  Our 
prayers  are  prophets." 

In  the  same  way  Emerson  gave  the  people  bread 
made  of  grain  that  had  grown  in  them.  He  differed 
from  the  majority  of  "  innovators"  in  this.  He  did 
not  undervalue  the  religious  sentiments  already  in  the 
common  people,  or  their  associations.  The  New 
England  congregations,  with  their  slowly  built-up 
independence  ;  the  weekly  day  of  rest,  which  gave 
opportunity  for  moral  culture ;  the  simplicity  of  the 
services,  allowing  so  much  room  for  quiet  modification  ; 
all  these  were  recognised  by  Emerson  as  forms,  in  the 
main,  higher  than  the  use  commonly  made  of  them. 
And  likewise  the  popular  beliefs  —  in  God,  in  the 


136  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

eternal  consequence  of  actions,  in  retribution,  in 
miracle,  in  the  divinity  of  a  man  who  had  lived  and 
died  for  his  fellows  —  how  susceptible  all  these  were  of 
such  statement  as  would  make  them  living  bread  to 
mankind !  The  only  need  was  that  men  and  women 
should  be  made  to  realise  that  these  things  were  of  the 
essence  of  their  daily  lives,  when  truly  lived.  What 
Confucius  had  taught  in  ancient  China,  Emerson  ap 
plied  to  his  neighbours.  u  The  ode  says,  As  we  cut 
hatchet  handles.  We  use  one  handle  to  cut  another. 
The  wise  man  uses  what  is  in  man  to  reform  men."  So 
Emerson  taught  the  lowly  folk  around  him  that  Concord 
and  East  Lexington  possess  the  elements  of  Palestine, 
that  true  prayers  are  alwa}'s  answered,  that  the  world 
is  what  we  believe  it  to  be,  that  the  future  is  what  we 
make  it,  and  that  the  perfect  man  is  God. 

He  studied  the  sciences  carefully,  always  keeping 
abreast  of  their  vanguard,  and  brought  every  ray  of 
light  from  Germany,  France,  England,  to  illumine  the 
things  around  him,  and  around  those  he  taught.  The 
discoveries  of  philology  lit  up  the  every-day  speech  of 
the  rustic,  surprised  at  finding  his  words  were  poems  : 
the  gods  and  goddesses  of  mythology  were  seen  in 
the  procession  of  dawns,  days,  clouds,  seasons  ;  the 
trees  were  heard  singing  and  sighing  as  if  an  Ariel 
were  in  each  ;  nature  was  touched  and  tinted  all  over 
with  new  light,  its  secrets  told,  until  everything  seemed 
supernatural.  To  make  life,  for  each  whom  he  could 
reach,  rich,  beautiful,  divine,  was  to  Emerson  an  object 
so  assiduously  pursued,  that  to  simple  minds  he  was 
irresistible. 

New  England  Puritanism  had  intertwined  its  theology 


DAILY    BREAD.  137 

with  every-day  life.  The  children  bore  scriptural 
names  ;  a  text  was  cited  for  everything,  whether  shoot 
ing  an  Indian,  executing  a  witch,  or  planting  peas  and 
beans.  The  perpetual  round  of  biblical  duties  gave 
the  week  seven  sabbaths.  It  has  been  said  that  if  a 
fool  would  only  be  consistent  in  his  folly  he  would  cease 
to  be  a  fool.  When  the  Judaic  delusion  of  Puritanism 
had  gone  to  a  suicidal  extreme,  when  the  strain  on 
human  nature  began  to  give  way,  and  a  generation 
came  that  could  venture  to  smile,  the  jokes  became 
textual.  The  author  of  "  The  Biglow  Papers,"  reply 
ing  to  a  charge  of  irreverence,  says  :  "  Will  any  one 
familiar  with  the  New  England  countryman  venture  to 
tell  me  that  he  does  not  speak  of  sacred  things  famil 
iarly  ?  "  Corresponding  to  this  was  that  outcome  of  the 
Puritan  measure  which  now,  by  the  voice  of  Emerson, 
insisted  on  an  actual  and  every-day  application  of  the 
principles  which  had  taken  the  place  of  the  dogmas. 
They  should  not  be  shelved  for  Sunday  use.  Whatever 
was  affirmed  must  be  religiously  applied.  The  typical 
old  lady  of  Boston,  who,  when  asked  her  opinion  of  the 
doctrine,  observed  that  "Total  depravity  is  a  good 
thing  if  only  lived  up  to,"  found  an  unexpected  sup 
porter  in  the  new  thinker.  Every  doctrine  which  had 
faintly  "  survived"  in  the  Unitarian  movement,  every 
theory  it  affirmed,  was  now  tested  as  to  its  applicability 
to  the  existing  time  and  place,  and  its  harmony  with 
the  highest  aims  that  men  and  women  could  set  before 
themselves.  The  churches  saw  danger  in  this  doctrine 
when  enunciated  by  one  who  had  found  even  the 
creedless  church  of  Channing  too  narrow,  and  whose 
pale  of  communion  had  widened  to  include  science  and 


138  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

art,  and  the  secular  work  of  the  world.  But  the  com 
mon  people  heard  him  gladly.  Pisgah  and  Tabor  rose 
up  against  the  horizon  around  Concord  and  Lexington. 
In  his  twenty-second  }*ear  Emerson,  at  the  anniversary 
of  the  Concord  fight,  proposed  the  toast,  "The  little 
bush  that  marks  the  spot  where  Captain  Davis  fell :  'tis 
the  burning  bush  where  God  spake  for  his  people." 
Now  he  kindles  every  bush  for  the  people.  He  per 
suades  the  farmer,  so  anxious  not  to  be  cheated,  that 
when  he  is  equally  anxious  not  to  cheat,  his  market- 
cart  will  shine  like  a  chariot  of  the  sun.  The  corre 
spondences  which  Swedenborg  saw  between  biblical  and 
natural  forms  are  fossils  beside  those  which  Emerson 
shewed  between  nature  and  the  heart,  mind,  life,  of 
every  man  ;  over  every  flower  hovered  its  soul,  and  the 
farm  was  a  sermon  that  never  wearied.  Thus  the 
descendant  of  Thomas  Emerson,  baker,  did  not  seek 
to  feed  the  hunger  of  his  villagers  with  tidings  of 
heavenly  bread  harvested  in  ancient  times  and  far 
lands.  Beside  his  "Labour-in-vain  Creek,"  as  the 
retrospective  fathers  found  it,  he  lived  and  laboured  as 
in  the  living  garden  of  a  living  God,  and  gave  of  its 
fruits  to  all  whom  he  met ;  and  such  made  it  manifest 
that  his  prophecy  was  true  —  that  which  was  ecstasy 
shall  become  daily  bread. 


THE  HOME.  139 


XIV. 

THE  HOME. 

A  WISE  old  friend  of  mine  used  to  say  that  in 
marriage  one  should  seek  a  soul  that  came  into 
the  world  about  the  same  time  as  himself."  So  Emer 
son  once  said  to  me.  Lidian  Jackson,  whom  he 
married  in  September,  1835,  exceeded  him  a  little  in 
age,  and  the  spiritual  breath  of  the  same  era  was  upon 
her.  Born  beside  Plymouth  Rock,  she  had  become  of 
such  marked  devoutness  in  the  Church  there  founded 
by  the  Pilgrims,  —  dedicated  by  her  ancestors  to  the 
God  of  Calvin,  and  ascended  to  the  God  of  Chanuing, — 
and  so  unwearied  in  her  charities  that  she  was  known 
as  "the  Saint  of  Plymouth."  Yet,  whenever  the  "  Last 
Supper"  was  to  be  celebrated  in  this  church,  its  saint 
arose,  and,  from  the  old  family  pew  near  the  pulpit, 
walked  down  the  aisle  and  out  of  the  church.  This 
was  not  because  she  did  not  honour  the  rite,  but  be 
cause  she  held  its  maintenance  as  a  condition  of 
church-membership  to  be  its  perversion  and  dishonour. 
Mrs.  Emerson  brought  some  pecuniary  addition  to  his  j 
means,  and  the  house,  with  its  pleasant  garden,  in 
which  he  loved  to  work,  and  several  acres  were  pur 
chased.  Emerson  now  regarded  himself  as  a  rich  man, 
with  his  homestead,  about  twenty  thousand  dollars  in  / 


140  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

money,  and  an  increasing  demand  for  his  lectures. 
Then,  as  always,  he  and  his  wife  knew  the  art  of 
spending.  Simplicity,  good  taste,  comfort,  hospitality, 
sincerity,  were  the  furniture  of  this  Concord  home. 
There  were  business  men  in  Boston  who  revered  the 
scholar  and  philosopher,  and  perhaps  then  as  later,  if 
they  had  a  good  chance  for  an  investment  were  glad  to 
get  Emerson's  surplus  into  it  and  forward  him  good 
dividends.  His  mother  may  have  been  a  little  dis 
tressed  at  first  by  the  strange  opinions  which  had  sep 
arated  him  from  the  Church,  but  she  soon  found  that 
he  had  chosen  the  better  part.  Surrounded  thus  by 
all  the  resources  of  happiness,  Emerson  sorrowed  most 
for  his  friend  Carlyle  in  his  lonely  home  on  the  bleak 
moors,  and  again  urged  him  to  come.  He  offered 
Carlyle  his  home,  and  even  his  own  destiny.  He 
prophesied  and  pictured  for  him  a  career  in  America 
singularly  resembling  the  career  afterwards  fulfilled  by 
himself.  "  He  used  to  write,"  said  Carlyle  to  me, 
u  of  solid  and  honest  farmers,  and  said,  'Horace 
Greeley  does  their  thinking  for  them  at  a  dollar  a 
head.'"  Whereat  Carlyle  wras  mirthful ;  but  one  can 
now  see  a  sad  contrast  in  the  environments  which  the 
Old  World  and  the  New  had  severally  assigned  to 
these  representatives  of  the  same  era.  Carlyle  praises 
poverty,  while  every  posthumous  page  bears  witness  to 
its  miserable  effects  upon  himself  and  his  life.  Emer 
son  never  knew  real  poverty  ;  even  while  he  drove  his 
mother's  cow  to  pasture,  there  were  prospects  of  plenty 
around  him  in  every  direction,  and  no  room  for  fear  or 
misgiving  about  the  future.  To  a  healthy  intelligent 
youth  America  was  already  a  fortune.  Caiiyle's 


THE    HOME.  141 

"Blessed  be  poverty"  is  not  so  wise  as  Solomon's 
"  Give  me  neither  poverty  nor  riches."  After  all  it  is  a 
mean  thing,  this  struggle  for  existence,  to  a  thinker 
whose  mind  should  be  free  to  detach  the  poetic  dream 
of  its  youth  from  the  local  mould,  and  sound  a 
melody  for  the  young  world.  "  Concordia  "  lost  noth 
ing  from  its  notes  by  not  having  passed  through  that 
furnace-smoke. 

Much  more  will  have  to  be  said  about  Emerson's 
home  as  the  birthplace  of  many  souls,  but  1  insert 
here  reminiscences  written  by  Louisa  Alcott,  whose 
tales  have  carried  far  the  morning  breath  of  Concord. 

"My  first  remembrance  is  of  the  morning  when  I 
was  sent  to  inquire  for  little  Waldo,  then,  lying  very  ill. 
His  father  came  to  me,  so  worn  with  watching  and 
changed  by  sorrow,  that  I  was  startled,  and  could  only 
stammer  out  my  message.  '  Child,  he  is  dead  ! '  was 
his  answer.  Then  the  door  closed,  and  1  ran  home  to 
tell  the  sad  tidings.  I  was  only  eight  years  old,  and 
that  was  my  first  glimpse  of  a  great  grief,  but  I  never 
have  forgotten  the  anguish  that  made  a  familiar  face  so 
tragical,  and  gave  those  few  words  more  pathos  than 
the  sweet  lamentation  of  the  '  Threnody.' 

"  Later,  when  we  went  to  school  with  the  little 
Emersons  in  their  father's  barn,  I  remember  many 
happy  times  when  the  illustrious  papa  was  our  good 
playfellow.  Often  piling  us  into  a  bedecked  hay-cart, 
he  took  us  to  berry,  bathe,  or  picnic  at  Walden,  mak 
ing  our  day  charming  and  memorable  by  showing  us 
the  places  he  loved,  the  wood-people  Thoreau  had 
introduced  to  him,  or  the  wildflowers  whose  hidden 
homes  he  had  discovered.  So  that  when,  years  after- 


142  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

wards,  we  read  of  '  the  sweet  rhodora  in  the  woods,' 
and  'the  burly,  dozing  humble-bee,'  or  laughed  over 
'The  Mountain  and  the  Squirrel,'  we  recognised  old 
friends,  and  thanked  him  for  the  delicate  truth 
and  beauty  which  made  them  immortal  for  us  and 
others. 

"When  the  book  mania  fell  upon  me  at  fifteen,  I 
used  to  venture  into  Mr.  Emerson's  library  and  ask 
what  I  should  read,  never  conscious  of  the  audacity 
of  my  demand,  so  genial  was  my  welcome.  His  kind 
hand  opened  to  me  the  riches  of  Shakespeare,  Dante, 
Goethe,  and  Carlyle  ;  and  I  gratefully  recall  the  sweet 
patience  with  which  he  led  me  round  the  book-lined 
room,  till  'the  new  and  very  interesting  book'  was 
found,  or  the  indulgent  smile  he  wore  when  I  proposed 
something  far  above  my  comprehension.  '  Wait  a 
little  for  that,'  he  said.  '  Meantime  try  this,  and 
if  you  like  it,  come  again.'  For  many  of  these  wise 
books  I  am  waiting  still,  very  patiently,  because  in  his 
own  I  have  found  the  truest  delight,  the  best  inspiration 
of  my  life. 

"When  these  same  precious  volumes  were  tumbled 
out  of  the  window  while  his  house  was  burning  some 
years  ago,  as  I  stood  guarding  the  scorched  wet  pile, 
Mr.  Emerson  passed  by,  and  surveying  the  devastation 
with  philosophic  calmness,  only  said  in  answer  to  my 
lamentations,  '  I  see  my  library  under  a  new  aspect. 
Could  you  tell  me  where  my  good  neighbours  have 
flung  my  boots  ? ' 

"  In  the  tribulations  of  later  life  this  faithful  house- 
friend  was  an  earthly  Providence,  conferring  favours 
so  beautifully  that  they  were  no  burden,  and  giving 


THE    HOME.  143 

such  sympathy  in  joy  and  sorrow  that  very  tender  ties 
were  knit  between  this  beneficent  nature  and  the  grate 
ful  hearts  he  made  his  own.  I  have  often  seen  him 
turn  from  distinguished  guests  to  say  a  wise  or  kindly 
word  to  some  humble  worshipper  sitting  modestly  in  a 
corner,  content  merely  to  look  and  listen,  and  who 
went  away  to  cherish  that  moment  long  and  grate 
fully." 

Emerson  had  taken  a  deep  interest  in  everything 
relating  to  the  village  in  which  he  had  come  to  reside. 
In  the  month  of  his  marriage  he  gave  the  address  on 
the  two-hundredth  anniversary  of  the  incorporation  of 
Concord.  It  has  been  quoted  in  a  previous  chapter, 
but  another  passage  may  be  set  here.  "  In  the  eternity 
of  Nature  how  recent  our  antiquities  appear !  The 
imagination  is  impatient  of  a  cycle  so  short.  Who 
can  tell  how  many  thousand  years,  every  day,  the 
clouds  have  shaded  these  fields  writh  their  purple  awn 
ing  ?  The  river,  by  whose  banks  most  of  us  were  born, 
every  winter  for  ages  has  spread  its  crust  of  ice  over 
the  great  meadows  which  in  ages  it  had  formed.  But 
the  little  society  of  men  who  now,  for  a  few  years,  fish 
in  this  river,  plough  the  fields  it  washes,  mow  the  grass, 
and  reap  the  corn,  shortly  shall  hurry  from  its  banks, 
as  did  their  forefathers.  '  Man's  life,'  said  the  Druid 
to  the  Saxon  king,  'is  the  sparrow  that  enters  at  a 
window,  flutters  round  the  house,  and  flies  out  at 
another,  and  none  kuoweth  whence  he  came  or  whither 
he  goes/  The  more  reason  that  we  should  give  to  our 
being  what  permanence  we  can,  that  we  should  recall 
the  past,  and  expect  the  future." 

Emerson's  mother  resided  in  his  home  until  her  death 


144  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

in  1853.  His  aunt  Mary  was  a  frequent  visitor  until 
her  death  in  18G3.  And  near  by,,  at  Waltham,  sub 
sequently  at  the  Old  Manse  in  Concord,  was  Sarah 
Ripley,  who  died  in  1867. 

He  suffered  some  severe  bereavements ;  especially 
heavy  was  that  of  his  beautiful  boy  Waldo.  But  he 
was  invincible  by  any  sorrow.  Writing  of  his  first 
visit  to  Europe  (1833)  he  says,  "If  Goethe  had  been 
still  living,  I  might  have  wandered  into  Germany  also." 
But  he  had  little  need  to  know  Goethe  personally,  for 
he  had  learned  that  great  man's  secret  of  life.  There 
is  a  letter  which  Goethe  addressed  "To  the  youthful 
poets  of  Germany,"  every  line  of  which  became  actual 
in  the  early  years  of  Emerson's  life  at  Concord. 
"When  at  our  entrance  into  the  life  of  action  and 
effort,  scant  in  pleasures,  in  which,  be  what  we  may, 
we  must  all  feel  ourselves  dependent  on  a  great  whole, 
we  ask  back  all  our  early  dreams,  wishes,  hopes  —  all 
the  delicious  joys  and  facilities  of  our  youthful  fairy 
land —  the  Muse  abandons  us,  and  seeks  the  company 
of  the  man  who  can  bear  disappointment  cheerfully, 
and  recover  from  it  easily  ;  who  knows  how  to  gather 
something  from  every  season  ;  who  can  enjoy  the  glassy 
ice-track  and  the  garden  of  roses,  each  in  its  appointed 
time  ;  who  understands  the  art  of  mitigating  his  own 
sufferings,  and  looks  steadfastly  and  industriously 
around  him,  where  he  may  find  another's  pain  to 
soothe,  another's  joy  to  enhance.  Then  do  no  years 
sever  him  from  the  benign  goddesses,  who,  if  they 
delight  in  the  bashfulness  of  innocence,  also  give  their 
support  to  far-looking  prudence  ;  here  foster  the  germ 


THE   HOME.  145 

of  hope  and  promise  ;    there  rejoice  in  the  complete 
accomplished  man  in  his  full  development. 

"  Jiinglmg,  merke  dir,  in  Zeiten, 
Wo  sich  Geisfc  und  Sinn  erhdht, 
Das  die  Muse  zu  begleiten 
Doch  zu  leiten  nicht  versteht." 


146  EMEKSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 


XV. 

NATURE. 

HERMAN  GRIMM,  writing  on  Emerson's  death 
(National  Zeitung),  says,  "  A  picture  at  Assisi, 
by  Giotto,  shows  St.  Francis  restoring  to  life  a  woman 
who  had  died  without  confession,  long  enough  to  con 
fess  to  him.  The  woman  raises  herself  on  her  bier, 
and  the  saint  kneels  before  her.  So,  it  appears  to  me, 
Emerson  awakened  Nature,  and  gave  her  a  voice,  that 
she  might  confess  to  him  her  secrets,  and  that  he  knows 
of  these  more  than  he  has  told." 

With  this  we  may  remember  one  of  Emerson's  early 
poems  —  Musketaquid. 

"  Because  I  was  content  with  these  poor  fields, 
Low,  open  meads,  slender  and  sluggish  streams, 
And  found  a  home  in  haunts  which  others  scorned, 
The  partial  wood-gods  overpaid  my  love, 
And  granted  me  the  freedom  of  their  state." 

The  Indian,  and  the  farmer  who  has  succeeded  him, 
are  caught  into  the  procession  of  natural  forms  pass 
ing  through  without  interrupting  his  solitude. 

"  Beneath  low  hills,  in  the  broad  interval 
Through  which  at  wrill  our  Indian  rivulet 
Winds,  mindful  still  of  stmimp  and  of  squaw, 
Whose  pipe  and  arrow  oft  the  plough  unburies^ 


NATURE.  147 

Here  in  pine  houses  built  of  new  fallen  trees, 
Supplanters  of  the  tribe,  the  farmers  dwell. 
Traveller,  to  thee,  perchance,  a  tedious  road, 
Or,  it  may  be,  a  picture ;  to  these  men 
The  landscape  is  an  armory  of  powers, 
Which,  one  by  one,  they  know  to  draw  and  use. 

They  fight  the  elements  with  elements 

(That  one  would  say,  meadow  and  forest  walked, 

Transmuted  in  these  men  to  rule  their  like) , 

And  by  the  order  in  the  field  disclose 

The  order  regnant  in  the  yeoman's  brain. 

"  What  these  strong  masters  wrote  at  large  in  miles, 
I  followed  in  small  copy  in  my  acre ; 
For  there's  no  rood  has  not  a  star  above  it ; 
The  cordial  quality  of  pear  or  plum 
Ascends  as  gladly  in  a  single  tree 
As  in  broad  orchards  resonant  with  bees ; 
And  every  atom  poises  for  itself, 
And  for  the  wiiole.     The  gentle  deities 
Showed  me  the  lore  of  colours  and  of  sounds, 
The  innumerable  tenements  of  beauty, 
The  miracle  of  generative  force, 
Far-reaching  concords  of  astronomy 
Felt  in  the  plants,  and  in  the  punctual  birds ; 
Better,  the  linked  purpose  of  the  whole, 
And,  chiefest  prize,  found  I  true  liberty 
.In  the  glad  home  plain-dealing  nature  gave." 

In  this  poem  there  is  the  feeling  of  Wordsworth,  but 
the  presence  of  a  new  creative  force  is  revealed  in  the 
succession  of  the  scenes.  The  intellect  with  its  prize 

—  liberty,  with  its  rood   beneath  and  star  overhead 

—  looks  not  on  shifting  landscapes  but  through  vistas 
unfolding  from  the  morning  cloud  to  man,  from  man 


148  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

to  the  poetic  idea  which  gathers  up  again  the  past  and 
enfolds  the  whole. 

In  1834  Emerson  gave  in  Boston  a  lecture  on  "  The 
Relations  of  Man  to  the  Globe."  It  has  never  been 
published,  but  in  it  occur  illustrations  prophetic  of 
Darwin's  theory.  He  said,  "  The  brother  of  the  hand 
existed  ages  ago  in  the  flipper  of  the  seal." 

While  young  Darwin  was  voyaging  around  the 
world  in  the  "  Beagle,"  Emerson  was  vo}*aging  around 
a  larger  sphere  without  quitting  the  limits  of  Concord. 
It  would  be  interesting  to  know  the  dates  of  some 
poems  of  his,  especially  those  of  which  Tyndall  has 
said  that  "  in  his  case  Poetry,  with  the  joy  of  a  bac 
chanal,  takes  her  graver  brother  Science  by  the  hand, 
and  cheers  him  with  immortal  laughter ;"  and  still 
more  of  those  in  which  that  grave  brother  is  transfig 
ured,  as  in  the  mystic-scientific  chant  of  Nature  in 
"  Wood-Notes  :  "  — 

u  To  the  open  ear  it  sings 
The  early  genesis  of  things, 
Of  tendency  through  endless  ages, 
Of  star-dust  and  star-pilgrimages, 
Of  rounded  worlds,  of  space  and  time, 
Of  the  old  flood's  subsiding  slime, 
Of  chemic  matter,  force,  and  form, 
Of  poles  and  powers,  cold,  wet,  warm : 
The  rushing  metamorphosis, 
Dissolving  all  that  fixture  is, 
Melts  things  that  be  to  things  that  seem, 
And  solid  nature  to  a  dream." 

Fortunately,  however,  we  are  not  without  dates  which 
show  how  early  Emerson's  poetic  dreams  cohered  in  an 


NATURE.  149 

ideal  conception  of  the  new  Genesis  which  Science  has 
since  verified.  "The  day  of  days,  the  great  day  of 
the  feast  of  life,  is  that  in  which  the  inward  eye  opens 
to  the  Unity  in  things."  Whatever  may  be  the  day,  by 
calendar,  which  shone  with  such  splendour  on  Emerson, 
we  know  that  its  radiance  so  encircled  him  forty-six 
}rears  ago  as  to  move  profoundly  wise  and  venerable 
scholars  around  him.  The  Hon.  Horace  Mann,  emi 
nent  for  his  educational  work  in  America,  wrote  to  a 
friend  concerning  a  lecture,  probably  one  of  twelve 
delivered  in  1836  at  Boston,  on  the  Philosophy  of  Ilis- 
tor}T,  in  these  terms  :  — 

"Mr.  Emerson,  I  am  sure,  must  be  perpetually  dis 
covering  richer  worlds  than  those  of  Columbus  or 
Herschel.  He  explores,  too,  not  in  the  scanty  and 
barren  region  of  our  physical  firmament,  but  in  a  spirit 
ual  firmament  of  illimitable  extent  and  compacted  of 
treasures.  I  heard  his  lecture  last  evening.  It  was  to 
human  life  what  Newton's  '  Principia '  was  to  mathe 
matics.  He  showed  me  what  I  have  long  thought  of 
so  much  —  how  much  more  can  be  accomplished  by 
taking  a  true  view  than  by  great  intellectual  energy. 
Had  Mr.  Emerson  been  set  down  in  a  wrong  place,  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  he  would  ever  have  found  his 
way  to  the  right  point  of  view ;  but  that  he  now  cer 
tainly  has  done.  As  a  man  stationed  in  the  sun  would 
see  all  the  planets  moving  around  it  in  one  direction 
and  in  perfect  harmony,  while  to  an  eye  on  the  earth 
their  motions  are  full  of  crossings  and  retrogradations, 
so  he,  from  his  central  position  in  the  spiritual  world, 
discovers  order  and  harmony  where  others  can  discern 
only  confusion  and  irregularity.  His  lecture  last  even- 


150  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

ing  was  one  of  the  most  splendid  manifestations  of  a 
truth-seeking  and  truth-developing  mind  I  ever  heard. 
Dr.  Walter  Charming,  who  sat  beside  me,  said  it  made 
his  head  ache.  Though  his  language  was  transparent, 
yet  it  was  almost  impossible  to  catch  the  great  beauty 
and  proportions  of  one  truth  before  another  was  pre 
sented." 

In  1836,  when  Darwin  returned  from  his  voyage  on 
the  "Beagle"  and  sat  down  to  his  mighty  task,  the 
pattern  of  what  he  was  to  do  was  seen  in  the  mount  at 
Concord,  and  published  that  year  in  the  little  book 
entitled  "Nature."  A  writer  in  the  "Saturday 
Review,"  after  speaking  of  "the  great  men  whom 
America  and  England  have  jointly  lost" — Emerson 
and  Darwin  —  remarks  that  "  some  of  those  who  have 
been  forward  in  taking  up  and  advancing  the  impulse 
given  by  Darwin,  not  only  on  the  general  ground 
where  it  started,  but  as  a  source  of  energy  in  the  wider 
application  of  scientific  thought,  have  once  and  again 
openly  declared  that  they  owe  not  a  little  to  Emer 
son."  This  just  remark  may  be  illustrated  by  Tyn- 
dall's  words  in  1873:  "The  first  time  I  ever  knew 
Waldo  Emerson  was  when,  years  ago,  I  picked  up  at 
a  stall  a  copy  of  his  'Nature.'  I  read  it  with  such 
delight,  and  I  have  never  ceased  to  read  it ;  and  if  any 
one  can  be  said  to  have  given  the  impulse  to  my  mind, 
it  is  Emerson :  whatever  I  have  done  the  world  owes 
to  him." 

Dr.  Tyndall  tells  me  that  in  the  volume  so  purchased 
he  wrote,  "Purchased  by  inspiration."  And  he  might 
have  said,  "Written  by  inspiration."  The  work  was 


NATURE.  151 

inspired  by  the  dawn  of  a  great  idea  in  the  writer's 
mind  —  Evolution.     It  has  a  prelude  of  six  lines  — 

u  A  subtle  chain  of  countless  rings 
The  next  unto  the  farthest  brings ; 
The  eye  reads  omens  where  it  goes, 
And  speaks  all  languages  the  rose ; 
And  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form." 

In  this  essay  occur  such  phrases  as  —  "  every  chem 
ical  change,  from  the  rudest  crystal  up  to  the  laws  of 
life ;  every  change  of  vegetation,  from  the  first  princi 
ple  of  growth  in  the  eye  of  a  leaf  to  the  tropical  forest 
and  antediluvian  coal-mine ;  every  animal  function, 
from  the  sponge  up  to  Hercules,"  — showing  the  direc 
tion  in  which  his  eye  is  turned.  And  there  are  these 
pregnant  sentences:  —  "Nothing  in  Nature  is  ex 
hausted  in  its  first  use.  When  a  thing  has  served  an 
end  to  the  uttermost,  it  is  wholly  new  for  an  ulterior 
service."  "  Herein  is  especially  apprehended  the 
unity  of  Nature  —  the  unity  in  variety  —  which  meets 
us  everywhere.  All  the  endless  variety  of  things  make 
an  identical  impression."  "Each  creature  is  only  a 
modification  of  the  other."  "Any  distrust  of  the 
permanence  of  laws  would  paralyse  the  faculties  of 
man."  "  If  the  reason  be  stimulated  to  more  earnest 
vision,  outlines  and  services  become  transparent,  and 
are  no  longer  seen  :  causes  and  spirits  are  seen  through 
them."  "  The  world  proceeds  from  the  same  spirit  as 
the  body  of  man."  "  In  a  cabinet  of  natural  history 
we  become  sensible  of  a  certain  occult  recognition  and 
sympathy  in  regard  to  the  most  unwieldy  and  eccentric 


152  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

forms  of  beast,  fish,  and  insect."  "Nor  has  science 
sufficient  humanity  so  long  as  the  naturalist  overlooks 
that  wonderful  congruity  which  subsists  between  man 
and  the  world,  of  which  he  is  lord,  not  because 
he  is  the  most  subtile  inhabitant,  but  because  he  is 
its  head  and  heart,  and  finds  something  of  himself 
in  every  great  and  small  thing,  in  every  mountain 
stratum,  in  every  new  law  of  colour,  fact  of  astron 
omy,  or  atmospheric  influence  which  observation  or 
analysis  lay  open." 

A  careful  perusal  of  the  sentences  just  cited  will 
show  that  Emerson's  mind  had  fully  conceived  the  idea 
of  relationship  between  all  organic  forms,  and  that  of 
the  harmony  of  each  and  all  with  elemental  environ 
ment.  It  may  now  be  further  noted  that  the  notions 
of  a  mechanical  creation,  and  of  a  creation  passed  and 
ended,  have  disappeared  from  his  thought.  God  is 
"  the  universal  spirit,"  whose  "essence  refuses  to  be 
recorded  in  propositions."  The  "universal  essence, 
which  is  not  wisdom,  or  love,  or  beauty,  or  power,  but 
all  in  one,  and  each  entirely,  is  that  for  which  all 
things  exist,  and  that  by  which  they  are."  "  Spirit 
creates."  "  That  which,  intellectually  considered,  we 
call  reason,  considered  in  relation  to  nature  we  call 
spirit."  This  spirit  now  creates  through  man.  "He 
(man)  is  placed  in  the  centre  of  beings,  and  a  ray  of 
relation  passes  from  every  other  being  to  him.  And 
neither  can  man  be  understood  without  these  objects, 
nor  these  objects  without  man."  "  Spirit,  that  is,  the 
Supreme  Being,  does  not  build  up  Nature  around  us, 
but  puts  it  forth  through  us,  as  the  life  of  the  tree  puts 
forth  new  branches  and  leaves  through  the  pores  of  the 


NATURE.  153 

old."  "Who  can  set  bounds  to  the  possibilities  of 
man?"  "  Man  has  access  to  the  entire  mind  of  the 
Creator,  is  himself  the  creator  in  the  finite."  "The 
reason  why  the  world  lacks  unity  and  lies  broken  and 
in  heaps,  is  because  man  is  disunited  with  himself." 

"When  a  faithful  thinker,  resolute  to  detach  every 
object  from  personal  relations,  and  see  it  in  the  light 
of  thought,  shall,  at  the  same  time,  kindle  science  with 
the  fire  of  the  holiest  affections  ;  then  will  God  go  forth 
anew  into  the  creation."  "Nature  is  not  fixed,  but 
fluid.  Spirit  alters,  moulds,  makes  it.  The  immo 
bility  or  bruteness  of  Nature  is  the  absence  of  spirit ; 
to  pure  spirit  it  is  fluid,  it  is  volatile,  it  is  obedient." 
"  All  good  is  eternally  reproductive.  The  beauty  of 
Nature  reforms  itself  in  the  mind,  and  not  for  barren 
contemplation  but  for  new  creation." 

This,  Emerson's  first  work,  ends  with  these  great 
words:  —  "The  kingdom  of  man  over  Nature,  which 
cometh  not  with  observation, — a  dominion  such  as 
now  is  beyond  his  dream  of  God,  —  he  shall  enter 
without  more  wonder  than  the  blind  man  feels  who  is 
gradually  restored  to  perfect  sight."  Forty  years  later 
the  prophecy  rose  again  when  Clifford  said:  "Those 
who  can  read  the  signs  of  the  times  read  in  them  that 
the  kingdom  of  Man  is  at  hand." 


UNIVERSITY 


154 


EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABKOAD. 


XVI. 

EVOLUTION. 

ACCORDING  to  an  American  myth,  when  Emer 
son    visited    Egypt   the    Sphinx   said    to    him, 
"You're  another!" 

The  enigmatic  element,  of  which  many  complained 
in  Emerson's  earliest  writings,  is  now  explicable 
enough.  He  spoke  from  a  generalisation  at  once  poetic 
and  scientific,  which  as  yet  had  nothing  corresponding 
to  it  in  the  popular  mind.  He  could  not  prove  it,  but 
it  was  perfectly  clear  to  him  that  the  method  of  nature 
is  evolution,  and  it  organised  the  basis  of  his  every 
statement.  Thus  in  August,  1841,  addressing  the 
Literary  Society  of  "Waterville  College,  occur  such 
passages  as  these:  "The  wholeness  we  admire  in  the 
order  of  the  world  is  the  result  of  infinite  distribution. 
Its  smoothness  is  the  smoothness  of  the  pitch  of  the 
cataract.  Its  permanence  is  a  perpetual  indication. 
Every  natural  fact  is  an  emanation,  and  that  from 
which  it  emanates  is  an  emanation  also,  and  from  every 
emanation  is  a  new  emanation."  "We  can  point 
nowhere  to  anything  final ;  but  tendency  appears  on 
all  hands  :  planet,  system,  constellation,  total  Nature, 
is  growing  like  a  field  of  maize  in  July  ;  is  becoming 
somewhat  else  ;  is  in  rapid  metamorphosis.  The  em- 


EVOLUTION.  155 

bryo  does  not  more  strive  to  be  man  than  yonder  burr 
of  light  we  call  a  nebula  tends  to  be  a  ring,  a  comet,  a 
globe,  and  parent  of  new  stars."  "How  silent,  how 
spacious,  what  room  for  all,  yet  without  place  to  insert 
an  atom,  —  in  graceful  succession,  in  equal  fulness,  in 
balanced  beauty,  the  dance  of  the  hours  goes  forward 
still.  Like  an  odour  of  incense,  like  a  strain  of  music, 
like  a  sleep,  it  is  inexact  and  boundless.  It  will  not 
be  dissected,  nor  unravelled,  nor  shewn.  Away,  pro 
fane  philosopher !  seekest  thou  in  nature  the  cause  ? 
This  refers  to  that,  and  that  to  the  next,  and  the  next 
to  the  third,  and  everything  refers.  Thou  must  ask  in 
another  mood,  thou  must  feel  it  and  love  it,  thou  must 
behold  it  in  a  spirit  as  grand  as  that  by  which  it  exists, 
ere  thou  canst  know  the  law.  Known  it  will  not  be,  but 
gladly  beloved  and  enjoyed."  "  There  is  no  revolt  in 
all  the  kingdoms  from  the  commonweal ;  no  detach 
ment  of  an  individual.  Hence  the  catholic  character 
which  makes  every  leaf  an  exponent  of  the  world." 
"  The  termination  of  the  world  in  a  man  appears  to  be 
the  last  victory  of  intelligence."  "  See  the  play  of 
thoughts  !  what  nimble  gigantic  creatures  are  these  ! 
what  saurians,  what  palaeotheria,  shall  be  named  with 
these  agile  movers."  How  simple  these  thoughts  have 
become  to  the  post-Darwinian  world  ! 

It  is  notable  that  simultaneously  with  "  The  Vestiges 
of  Creation"  in  England,  namely,  in  1844,  Emerson's 
second  essay  on  "  Nature  "  appeared.  It  is  a  prophetic 
hymn  to  the  ascending  star  whose  light  was  already 
leading  wise  men  towards  the  truth,  —  taking  form  in 
exact  science, — whereof  the  "Vestiges"  was  a  half- 
clad  forerunner.  "  Let  us  no  longer  omit  our  homage 


156  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

to  the  Efficient  Nature,  natura  naturans,  the  quick  cause 
before  which  all  forms  flee  as  the  driven  snows,  itself 
secret,  its  works  driven  before  it  in  flocks  and  multi 
tudes  (as  the  ancients  represented  nature  by  Proteus, 
a  shepherd),  and  in  undescribable  variety.  It  pub 
lishes  itself  in  creatures,  reaching  from  particles  and 
specula,  through  transformation  on  transformation,  to 
the  highest  symmetries,  arriving  at  consummate  results 
without  shock  or  leap.  A  little  heat,  that  is,  a  little 
motion,  is  all  that  differences  the  bald,  dazzling 
white  and  deadly  poles  of  the  earth  from  the  pro 
lific  tropical  climates.  All  changes  pass  without 
violence,  by  reason  of  the  two  cardinal  conditions 
of  boundless  space  and  boundless  time.  Geology  has 
initiated  us  into  the  secularity  of  nature,  and  taught 
us  to  disuse  our  rdame-school  measures  and  exchange 
our  Mosaic  and  Ptolemaic  schemes  for  her  large  style. 
We  knew  nothing  rightly  for  want  of  perspective. 
Now  we  learn  what  patient  periods  must  round  them 
selves  before  the  rock  is  formed,  then  before  the  rock 
is  broken,  and  the  first  lichen  race  has  disintegrated 
the  thinnest  external  plate  into  soil,  and  opened  the 
door  for  the  remote  flora,  fauna,  Ceres  and  Pomona,  to 
come  in.  How  far  off  yet  is  the  trilobite  !  how  far  the 
quadruped !  how  inconceivably  remote  is  man !  All 
duly  arrive,  and  then  race  after  race  of  men.  It  is  a 
long  way  from  granite  to  the  oyster ;  farther  yet  to 
Plato  and  the  preaching  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
Yet  all  must  come  as  surely  as  the  atom  has  two 
sides." 

In  this  passage  the  "Spirit"  of  Emerson's  first  work 
("  Nature,"  published  eight  years  before)  re-appears  as 


EVOLUTION.  157 

the  Natura  Naturans;  but  this  again,  paraphrased  as 
"  Efficient  Nature,"  "  quick  (living)  cause,"  is  an 
intellectual  Declaration  of  Independence.  "Man," 
he  says,  "carries  the  world  in  his  head,  the  whole 
astronomy  and  chemistry  suspended  in  a  thought. 
Because  the  history  of  nature  is  charactered  in  his 
brain,  therefore  is  he  the  prophet  and  discoverer  of 
her  secrets.  Every  known  fact  in  natural  science  was 
divined  by  the  presentiment  of  somebody  before  it  was 
actually  verified." 

The  publication  of  "  The  Vestiges  of  Creation"  had 
the  good  effect  of  popularising  the  idea  of  evolution, 
and  the  bad  effect  of  stating  the  facts  so  inaccurately 
that  men  of  science  were  prejudiced  against  the  gen 
eral  hypothesis.  The  panic  of  the  pulpit  also  led  some 
to  commit  themselves  against  a  theory  so  crudely  stated. 
The  book  did  not  advance  the  theory  so  far  as  Emerson 
had  already  gone,  for  it  still  supposed  "  leaps"  in  the 
development  of  organisation.  But  Emerson  would 
admit  no  shock  or  leap."  lie  was  also  repelled  bv 
the  mechanic  Tlieos  which  the  author  of  the  "Vestiges  " 
imported.  The  old  phrases  "Supreme  Architect," 
"Almighty,"  "Providence,"  had  become  fossil  to  him 
whose  deity  had  become  subjective.  However,  he  once 
told  me  that  he  thought  the  book  had  done  good  ser 
vice  in  diffusing  many  valuable  discoveries  and  general 
isations  of  the  German  and  French  savants;  and  while 
it  was  trampled  on  by  preachers  and  professors,  he 
affirmed  its  main  principle  to  be  true.  One  of  his 
steadfast  warnings  was  that  in  his  essay  on  "Circles" 
—  printed  three  years  before  the  "Vestiges:"  "Fear 
not  the  new  generalisation.  Does  the  fact  look  crass 


158  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

and  material,  threatening  to  degrade  thy  theory  of 
spirit  ?  Resist  it  not ;  it  goes  to  refine  and  raise  thy 
theory  of  matter  just  as  much." 

While  Auguste  Comte  and  Mill  ignored  evolution, 
and  Carlyle  reviled  it,  Emerson  was  building  on  it  as 
upon  a  rock.  His  friend  Agassiz  had  committed  him 
self  rather  warmly  against  it,  —  though  relenting  in 
later  life,  —  and  I  heard  several  conversations  be 
tween  them  on  the  subject.  Emerson  quoted  various 
things  from  Agassis 's  own  works,  especially  his  re 
searches  in  embryology,  which  seemed  to  support  the 
new  theory.  Agassiz  said  that  unquestionably  there 
was  an  ideal  relation  between  organic  forms,  an  un 
broken  succession  of  ascending  tyues,  but  he  denied 
that  one  species  could  be  developed  from  another. 
This  seemed  to  him  atheism.  But  Emerson  held  no 
such  theism  as  could  be  affected  by  any  scientific  dis 
covery  or  opinion.  He  worshipped  Thought.  "Our 
theism  is  the  purification  of  the  human  mind,"  was  his 
brave  word  many  years  before,  and  it  was  written  again 
on  his  face  whenever  any  opinion  offered  itself  author 
itatively. 

Emerson's  theory  of  evolution  was  a  theory  of  Ascent. 
"  The  gases  gather  to  the  solid  firmament ;  the  chemic 
lump  arrives  at  the  plant,  and  grows ;  arrives  at  the 
quadruped,  and  walks  ;  arrives  at  the  man,  and  thinks." 
This  was  his  idealism,  that  matter  and  mind,  as  they 
are  called,  are  varied  movements  of  one  symphony. 

On  this  he  rested  his  idea  of  "  Poetry."  His  essay 
on  this  subject  in  "  Letters  and  Social  Aims,"  pub 
lished  in  187G,  was  read  to  a  small  company  in  Divin 
ity  College  twenty-three  years  before.  Some  of  us  at 


EVOLUTION.  159 

Harvard  University  had  found  our  real  professor  at 
Concord,  and  one  winter  evening  we  went  out,  travel 
ling  the  seventeen  miles  in  sleighs,  to  hear  a  lecture 
that  was  to  have  been  given  by  him.  The  lecture  had 
been  postponed,  but  Emerson,  hearing  of  our  arrival, 
invited  us  to  his  house,  and  we  went  back  enriched  by 
his  conversation,  without  feeling  any  disappointment. 
Nevertheless,  Emerson  wrote  me  that  if  I  would  make 
the  preparations,  he  would  read  a  lecture  in  my  room. 
On  that  occasion,  besides  the  students  who  had  gone 
to  Concord  for  the  lecture,  others  were  present,  in 
cluding  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Longfellow,  J.  II.  Lowell,  Mrs. 
Charles  Lowell,  J.  S.  I) wight,  Charles  Norton  and  Irs 
sister,  L.  G.  Ware,  H.  G.  Denny,  and  Otto  Dresel. 
In  that  essay  Emerson  said  :  ' '  The  electric  word  pro 
nounced  by  John  Hunter  a  hundred  years  ago,  — 
arrested  and  progressive  development,  —  indicating  the 
way  upward  from  the  invisible  protoplasm  to  tl  e 
highest  organisms,  —  gave  the  poetic  key  to  natural 
science,  —  of  which  the  theories  of  Geoffroy  St.  Hil- 
aire,  of  Oken,  of  Goethe,  of  Agassiz,  and  Owen  and 
Darwin  in  zoology  and  botany,  are  the  fruits,  —  a  hint 
whose  power  is  not  yet  exhausted,  showing  unity  and 
perfect  order  in  physics. 

"The  hardest  chemist,  the  severest  analyser,  scorn 
ful  of  all  but  the  driest  fact,  is  forced  to  keep  the 
poetic  curve  of  Nature,  and  his  result  is  like  a  myth 
of  Theocritus.  All  multiplicity  rushes  to  be  resolved 
into  unity.  Anatomy,  osteology,  exhibit  arrested  or 
progressive  ascent  in  each  kind,  the  lower  pointing  to 
the  higher  forms,  the  higher  to  the  highest,  from  the 
fluid  in  an  elastic  sack,  from  radiate,  mollusk,  articu- 


160  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

late,  vertebrate,  up  to  man ;  as  if  the  whole  animal 
world  were  only  a  Hunterian  museum  to  exhibit  the 
genesis  of  mankind." 

The  Darwin  here  referred  to  is  the  elder  Erasmus 
Darwin  ;  it  was  five  years  later  than  the  revelation  of 
the  method  of  this  progression  appeared  in  the  paper 
of  Charles  Darwin  published  in  the  Linnsean  Society's 
Journal  (1858).  And  now  that  the  noble  Boston 
Museum  is  built,  whose  successive  storeys  repeat  the 
history  and  ascent  of  organisation  in  the  earth,  there 
might  be  written  on  its  door  that  which  Emerson  fur 
ther  said  to  us  in  that  small  company  —  "  Each  animal 
or  vegetable  form  remembers  the  next  inferior  and 
predicts  the  next  higher.  There  is  one  animal,  one 
plant,  one  matter,  and  one  force." 

From  this  pedestal,  like  some  white  column  resting 
on  lions  winged  and  couching,  carved  in  its  ascent 
with  the  symbols  of  every  faith,  rose  Emerson's  dream 
of  the  true  poem.  "  In  poetry  we  require  the  miracle. 
The  bee  flies  among  flowers,  and  gets  mint  and  mar 
joram,  and  generates  a  new  product,  which  is  not  mint 
and  marjoram,  but  honey  ;  the  chemist  mixes  hydrogen 
and  oxygen  to  yield  a  new  product,  which  is  not  these, 
but  water ;  and  the  poet  listens  to  conversation,  and 
beholds  all  objects  in  nature,  to  give  back,  not  them, 
but  a  new  and  transcendent  whole." 

There  were  poets  present,  but  when  this  great  essay 
paused,  and  only  an  ideal  poet  crowned  the  exalted 
shaft,  it  appeared  the  truest  New  World  poem  that  we 
were  gathered  there  around  the  seer,  in  whose  vision  the 
central  identity  in  nature  flowed  through  man's  reason, 
gently  did  away  with  discords  by  their  promise  of 


EVOLUTION.  161 

larger  harmonies.  That  which  the  Brahmans  had 
found  in  the  East  our  little  company  knew  there  in 
the  West  also:  "From  the  poisonous  tree  of  the 
world  two  species  of  fruit  are  produced,  sweet  as  the 
waters  of  life  :  Love,  or  the  society  of  beautiful  souls, 
and  Poetry,  whose  taste  is  like  the  immortal  juice  of 
Vishnu."  When  Emerson  finished  there  was  still  a 
hush  of  silence :  it  seemed  hardly  broken  when  Otto 
Dresel  performed  some  u  Songs  without  Words." 


162  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 


XVII. 
SURSUM  CORDA. 

WHEN  the  rumour  reached  the  Boston  ministers 
that  Emerson  had  made  a  visitation  at  Divinity 
College,  there  was  some  small  flutter,  and  even  a  little 
inquisition  ;  whereat  our  good  professors  —  Dr.  Francis 
and  Dr.  Noyes  —  smiled,  as  old  sailors  might  at  the 
shaken  nerves  which  turn  squalls  to  hurricanes.  The 
breeze  was  useful  as  a  suggestion  of  the  real  tornadoes 
which  followed  Emerson's  earlier  visits  to  Cambridge, 
concerning  which  the  traditions  remained  fresh  enough 
up  to  the  time  (18G7)  when  the  University  surrendered, 
made  Emerson  Doctor  of  Laws,  and  Overseer,  and  a 
Special  Lecturer  to  the  young  men  he  had  all  along 
been  really  teaching.  To  that  earlier  period  we  now 
return. 

The  little  book  of  1836,  entitled  "Nature,"  was  a 
soft  footfall  in  the  solitude  of  Concord,  but  clerical  re- 
adjusters  of  their  religious  inheritance,  with  the  keen 
sense  of  a  threatened  race,  laid  their  ear  to  the  ground 
and  heard  battalions  behind  that  hermit.  "  It  is  a  sug 
gestive  book,"  the  "  Christian  Examiner  "  must  admit. 
"  But  the  effort  of  perusal  is  often  painful,  the  thoughts 
excited  are  frequently  bewildering,  and  the  results  to 
which  thev  lead  us  uncertain  and  obscure.  The  reader 


SURSUM   CORDA.  163 

feels  as  in  a  distracted  dream,  in  which  shows  of  sur 
passing  beauty  are  around  him,  and  he  is  conversant 
with  disembodied  spirits ;  yet  all  the  time  he  is 
harassed  with  an  uneasy  sort  of  consciousness  that 
the  whole  combination  of  phenomena  is  fantastic 
and  unreal."  "Nature"  was  printed  anonymously, 
but  its  writer  was  easily  known  ;  and  when  the  ques 
tion  was  asked,  Who  is  the  author  of  "Nature?" 
the  reply  was,  "  God  and  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson." 

The  misgivings  were  chiefly  excited  by  the  first  para 
graph  of  "  Nature,"  so  often  quoted  —  the  "  Let  there 
be  light "  of  this  New  World  creation.  "  Our  age  is  ret 
rospective.  It  builds  the  sepulchres  of  the  fathers.  It 
writes  biographies,  histories,  and  criticism.  The  fore 
going  generations  beheld  God  and  nature  face  to  face  ; 
we  through  their  eyes.  Why  should  not  we  also  enjoy 
an  original  relation  to  the  universe  ?  Why  should  not 
we.  have  a  poetry  and  philosophy  of  insight,  and  not 
of  tradition,  and  a  religion  by  revelation  to  us,  and  not 
the  history  of  theirs?  Embosomed  for  a  season  in 
nature,  whose  floods  stream  around  and  through  us, 
and  invite  us,  by  the  powers  they  supply,  to  action 
proportioned  to  nature,  why  should  we  grope  among 
the  dry  bones  of  the  past,  or  put  the  living  generation 
into  masquerade  out  of  its  faded  wardrobe  ?  The  sun 
shines  to-day  also.  There  is  more  wool  and  flax  in 
the  fields.  There  are  new  lands,  new  men,  new 
thoughts.  Let  us  demand  our  own  works  and  laws 
and  worship." 

The  first  response  to  this  was  an  invitation  from  the 
most  important  literary  societ}^  of  the  country,  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa,  that  Emerson  should  be  their  orator 


164  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

for  the  year  1837.  The  oration  was  given  at  Harvard 
University.  Lowell  has  described  it  as  "  an  event 
without  any  former  parallel  in  our  literary  annals,  a 
scene  to  be  always  treasured  in  the  memory  for  its 
picturesqueness  and  its  inspiration.  What  crowded 
and  breathless  aisles,  what  windows  clustering  with 
eager  heads,  what  enthusiasm  of  eager  approval,  what 
grim  silence  of  foregone  dissent !  "  The  theme  was 
"  The  American  Scholar."  The  scholar  was  denned 
as  man  thinking.  He  touched  again  on  the  unity  of 
nature.  "  To  this  schoolboy  under  the  bending  dome 
of  day,  is  suggested  that  he  and  it  proceed  from  one 
root ;  one  is  leaf  and  one  is  flower  ;  relation,  sympathy, 
stirring  in  every  vein."  4t  The  ancient  precept,  '  Know 
thyself,'  and  the  modern  precept,  '  Study  Nature,'  be 
come  at  last  one  maxim."  He  dispersed  the  illusions 
of  antiquity.  "Genius  looks  forward:  the  eyes  of 
man  are  set  in  his  forehead,  not  in  his  hindhead  :  man 
hopes  ;  genius  creates."  He  repudiates  the  idea  that 
the  scholar  should  be  a  dreamer.  "  The  scholar  loses 
no  hour  which  the  man  lives."  From  the  education  of 
the  scholar  by  nature,  by  books,  and  by  action,  the 
orator  passes  to  the  function  of  the  scholar.  His 
duties  are  such  as  belong  to  the  world's  eye,  and  the 
world's  heart,  which  must  be  raised  above  private  con 
siderations  to  breathe  and  live  in  public  and  illustrious 
thoughts.  For  the  ease  and  pleasure  of  treading  the 
old  road  he  takes  the  cross  of  making  his  own,  and  is 
to  find  consolation  in  exercising  the  highest  functions 
of  human  nature.  "  In  self-trust  all  the  virtues  are 
comprehended.  Free  should  the  scholar  be  —  free  and 
brave.  Free  even  to  the  definition  of  freedom,  without 


SURSUM    CORDA.  165 

any  hindrance  that  does  not  arise  out  of  his  own  con 
stitution.  Brave  ;  for  fear  is  a  thing  which  a  scholar 
by  his  very  function  puts  behind  him." 

The  art  of  Emerson  in  parts  of  this  oration  can  best 
be  appreciated  by  those  who  know  how  far  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery  had  bound  fast  the  conscience  of  the 
North  with  cotton  cords,  and  that  pulpits  and  pro 
fessions  were  largely  retained  to  justify  the  national 
wrong.  Even  the  brave  were  apologetic  when  claim 
ing  their  right  to  speak.  The  example  of  slave-holding 
patriarchs  had  given  a  fresh  lease  of  infallibility  to  the 
Bible.  Longfellow's  "Slave  Singing  at  Midnight" 
might  represent  the  darkness  corresponding  to  that 
which  surrounded  the  negro  —  that  shadow  fallen  upon 
the  literature  of  the  land,  which  Emerson  was  the  first 
to  dispel.  Preservation  of  the  existing  "  order  "  (now 
recognisable  as  disorder)  being  the  main  factor  of 
moral  selection  —  Compromise  alone  able  to  pay  high 
for  brains  —  the  literary  tendency  was  toward  imita 
tion  of  foreign  models.  Intellect  required  diversion 
to  questions  other  than  those  which  concerned  the 
United  States,  and  while  pulpits  fulminated  against 
stiff-necked  Israelites,  literature  was  actively  engaged 
with  the  Greeks  and  Romans. 

Emerson  wras  not  one  sided.  While  he  said,  "  Give 
me  insight  in  to-day,  and  you  may  have  the  antique 
and  future  worlds,"  he  reminded  the  scholars  that  the 
near  and  far  explain  each  other,  and  that  Goethe, 
"the  most  modern  of  moderns,  has  shewn  us  as  none 
ever  did  the  genius  of  the  ancients."  "  The  scholar  is 
that  man  who  must  take  up  into  himself  all  the  ability 
of  the  time,  the  contributions  of  the  past,  all  the  hopes 


166  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

of  the  future/'  His  concern  was  that  the  American 
scholar  should  bring  his  genius  into  harmony  with  tlio 
principles  and  adequacy  to  the  opportunities  of  Ins 
country,  and  do  justice  to  the  trust  which  human 
history  had  placed  in  his  hands.  "  Young  men  of  the 
fairest  promise,  who  begin  life  upon  our  shores,  inflated 
by  the  mountain  winds,  sinned  upon  by  all  the  stars  of 
God,  find  the  earth  below  not  in  unison  with  these,  but 
are  hindered  from  action  by  the  disgust  which  the  prin 
ciples  on  which  business  is  managed  inspire,  and  turn 
drudges  or  die  of  disgust  —  some  of  them  suicides. 
What  is  the  remedy?  They  did  not  yet  see,  and  thou 
sands  of  young  men  as  hopeful  now  crowding  to  the 
barriers  for  the  career  do  not  yet  see,  that  if  the  single 
man  plant  himself  indomitably  on  his  instincts,  and 
there  abide,  the  huge  world  will  come  round  to  him." 

This  phrase  last  quoted  is  now  historical.  The 
feathered  thunderbolt  sped  to  its  mark.  It  came  from 
a  young  man  who,  following  his  brother,  had  slowly 
earned  and  made  his  professional  panoply  only  to  find 
there  was  no  post  for  him,  nor  corps  in  which  he  could 
serve,  and  had  to  form  a  new  army  with  a  new  cause. 
By  one  of  the  many  whose  lives  were  influenced  by  it 
that  word  was  repeated  over  Emerson's  grave:  "He 
planted  himself  indomitably  on  his  instincts,  and  did 
there  abide,  and  the  huge  world  came  round  to  him." 


THE  SHOT  HEARD  ROUND  THE  WORLD.   167 


XVIII. 

THE  SHOT  HEARD  ROUND  THE  WORLD. 

IN  the  year  1836,  the  year  of  "Nature,"  Concord 
monument  was   completed,  and   Emerson's  hymn 
sung,  beginning  — 

"  By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched  the  flood, 

Their  flag  to  April's  breeze  unfurled, 
Here  once  the  embattled  farmers  stood, 
And  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world. 

Two  years  later,  from  where  that  shot  announced  the 
birth  of  a  nation,  came  a  farmer  to  announce  the  birth 
of  its  religion.  On  July  15,  1838,  Emerson  delivered 
before  the  senior  class  in  Divinity  College,  Harvard 
University,  that  address  which  stands  in  the  moral 
history  of  America  where  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  stands  in  its  political  history.  The  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  oration  of  the  previous  year  had  excited  dis 
cussions,  questionings,  enthusiasm ;  and  the  assembly 
which  gathered  to  hear  the  new  prophet's  word  on 
religion  was  not  only  large,  but  included  the  represen 
tative  scholars  and  teachers  of  the  country. 

Never  to  be  forgotten  was  the  fatal  melody  that- 
startled  the  air  when  that  appeal  to  the  young  minis 
ters  was  made.  Its  opening  was  as  the  outburst  of 


1G8  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

some  magically  gorgeous  season.  "In  this  refulgent 
summer  it  has  been  a  luxury  to  draw  the  breath  of 
life.  The  grass  grows,  the  buds  burst,  the  meadow  is 
spotted  with  fire  and  gold  in  the  tint  of  flowers.  The 
air  is  full  of  birds,  and  sweet  with  the  breath  of  the 
pine,  the  balm  of  Gilead,  and  the  new  hay.  Night 
brings  no  gloom  to  the  heart  with  its  welcome  shade. 
Through  the  transparent  darkness  the  stars  pour  their 
almost  spiritual  rays.  Man  under  them  seems  a  young 
child,  and  his  huge  globe  a  toy.  The  cool  night 
bathes  the  world  as  with  a  river,  and  prepares  his 
eyes  again  for  the  crimson  dawn.  The  mystery  of 
Nature  was  never  displayed  more  happily.  The  corn 
and  wine  have  been  freely  dealt  to  all  creatures,  and 
the  never-broken  silence  with  which  the  old  bounty 
goes  forward  has  not  yet  yielded  one  word  of  explan 
ation.  One  is  constrained  to  respect  the  perfection  of 
this  world  in  which  our  senses  converse.  How  wide  ; 
how  rich ;  what  invitation  from  every  property  it 
gives  to  every  faculty  of  man !  .  .  .  But  when  the 
mind  opens,  and  reveals  the  laws  which  traverse 
the  universe,  and  make  things  what  they  are,  then 
shrinks  the  great  world  at  once  into  a  mere  illustra 
tion  and  fable  of  this  mind.  .  .  .  A  more  secret,  sweet, 
and  overpowering  beauty  appears  to  man  when  his 
heart  and  mind  open  to  the  sentiment  of  virtue." 

The  audience  sat  breathless,  expectant.  What 
strange  planet  was  to  follow  these  auroral  flushes  on 
the  horizon?  Meanwhile,  this  new  Hepruestus  brings 
his  axe.  flashing  a  curve  of  light,  straight  on  the  head 
of  Zeus.  "  If  a  man  is  at  heart  just,  then  in  so  far  is 
he  God ;  the  safety  of  God,  the  immortality  of  God, 


THE  SHOT  HEARD  ROUND  THE  WORLD.   169 

the  majesty  of  God,  do  enter  that  man  with  justice." 
"  Jesus  Christ  belonged  to  the  true  race  of  prophets." 
"One  man  was  true  to  what  is  in  you  and  me." 
"  Christianity  became  a  mythus,  as  the  poetic  teaching 
of  Greece  and  of  Egypt  before."  "The  test  of  the 
true  faith  certainly  should  be  to  charm  and  command 
the  soul,  as  the  laws  of  nature  control  the  activity  of 
the  hands, — so  commanding  that  we  find  pleasure  and 
honour  in  obeying."  "  The  faith  should  blend  with  the 
light  of  rising  and  of  setting  suns,  with  the  flying  cloud, 
the  singing  bird,  and  the  breath  of  flowers.  But  now 
the  priest's  sabbath  has  lost  the  splendour  of  Nature  ; 
it  is  unlovely ;  we  are  glad  when  it  is  done ;  we  can 
make,  we  do  make,  even  sitting  in  our  pews,  a  far  bet 
ter,  holier,  sweeter  for  ourselves.  .  .  .  The  prayers 
and  even  the  dogmas  of  our  Church  are,  like  the  zodiac 
of  Denderah  and  the  astronomical  monuments  of  the 
Hindoos,  wholly  insulated  from  anything  now  extant 
in  the  life  and  business  of  the  people.  .  .  .  The  sta- 
tionariness  of  religion,  the  assumption  that  the  age  of 
inspiration  is  past,  that  the  Bible  is  closed,  the  fear  of 
degrading  the  character  of  Jesus  by  representing  him 
as  a  man,  indicate  with  sufficient  clearness  the  false 
hood  of  our  theology.'* 

And  at  last  from  the  cloven  cloud  emerged  a  Western 
Athena  with  panoply  of  light  and  fire.  "I  look  for 
the  hour  when  that  supreme  Beauty  which  ravished  the 
souls  of  those  Eastern  men,  and  chiefly  of  those 
Hebrews,  and  through  their  lips  spoke  oracles  to  all 
time,  shall  speak  in  the  West  also.  The  Hebrew  and 
Greek  scriptures  contain  immortal  sentences,  that  have 
been  bread  of  life  to  millions  ;  but  they  have  no  epical 


170  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

integrity ;  are  fragmentary ;  are  not  shewn  in  their 
order  to  the  intellect.  I  look  for  the  new  Teacher  that 
shall  follow  so  far  those  shining  laws  that  he  shall  see 
them  come  in  full  circle  ;  shall  see  their  rounding  com 
plete  grace  ;  shall  see  the  world  to  be  the  mirror  of  the 
soul ;  shall  see  the  identity  of  the  law  of  gravitation 
with  purity  of  heart ;  and  shall  shew  that  the  Ought, 
that  Duty,  is  one  thing  with  Science,  with  Beauty,  and 
with  Joy. 

The  Rev.  Henry  Ware,  whose  colleague  Emerson 
had  been  in  Boston,  addressed  to  him  a  friendly  expos 
tulation  against  the  doctrines  of  this  discourse.  In 
reply  Emerson  wrote  as  follows:  —  "What  you  say 
about  the  discourse  at  Divinity  College  is  just  what  I 
might  expect  from  your  truth  and  charity,  combined 
with  your  known  opinions.  I  am  not  a  stock  or  a 
stone,  as  one  said  in  the  old  time,  and  could  not  feel 
but  pain  in  saying  some  things  in  that  place  and  pres 
ence  which  I  supposed  would  meet  with  dissent,  and 
the  dissent,  I  may  say,  of  dear  friends  and  benefactors 
of  mine.  Yet,  as  my  conviction  is  perfect  in  the  sub 
stantial  truth  of  the  doctrines  of  this  discourse,  and 
is  not  very  new,  you  will  see  at  once  that  it  must  ap 
pear  very  important  that  it  be  spoken  ;  and  I  thought 
I  could  not  pay  the  nobleness  of  my  friends  so  mean  a 
compliment  as  to  suppress  my  opposition  to  their  sup 
posed  views,  out  of  fear  of  offence.  I  would  rather 
say  to  them  —  These  things  look  thus  to  me,  to  you 
otherwise.  Let  us  say  our  uttermost  word,  and  be  the 
all-pervading  truth,  as  it  surely  will,  judge  between  us. 
Either  of  us  would,  I  doubt  not,  be  equally  apprised  of 
his  error.  Meantime  I  shall  be  admonished  by  this 


THE  SHOT  HEARD  ROUND  THE  WORLD.   171 

expression  of  your  thought  to  revise  with  great  care 
the  address  before  it  is  printed  (for  the  use  of  the 
class) ,  and  I  heartily  thank  you  for  this  expression  of 
your  tried  toleration  and  love." 

This  was  followed  by  a  sermon  from  the  same  minis 
ter  against  Emerson's  views,  a  copy  of  which  was  sent 
to  him  with  a  letter,  to  which  he  replied  as  follows  :  — 
"  I  ought  sooner  to  have  replied  to  your  kind  letter  of 
last  week,  and  the  sermon  it  accompanied.  The  letter 
was  right  manly  and  noble.  The  sermon,  too,  I  have 
read  with  attention.  If  it  assails  any  doctrine  of  mine 
—  perhaps  I  am  not  so  quick  to  see  it  as  writers  gene 
rally  —  certainly  I  did  not  feel  any  disposition  to  de 
part  from  my  habitual  contentment  that  you  should 
say  your  thought  whilst  I  say  mine.  I  believe  I  must 
tell  you  what  I  think  of  my  new  position.  It  strikes 
me  very  oddly  that  good  and  wise  men,  and  Cambridge 
and  Boston,  should  think  of  raising  me  into  an  object 
of  criticism.  I  have  always  been,  from  my  very  inca 
pacity  of  methodical  writing,  '  a  chartered  libertine,' 
free  to  worship  and  free  to  rail,  lucky  when  I  could 
make  myself  understood,  but  never  esteemed  near 
enough  to  the  institutions  and  mind  of  society  to  de 
serve  the  notice  of  the  masters  of  literature  and  reli 
gion.  I  have  appreciated  fully  the  advantages  of  my 
position,  for  I  well  know  that  there  is  no  scholar  less 
willing  or  less  able  to  be  a  polemic.  I  could  not  give 
account  of  myself,  if  challenged.  I  could  not  possibly 
give  you  one  of  the  arguments  you  cruelly  hint  at,  on 
which  any  doctrine  of  mine  stands.  For  I  do  not 
know  what  arguments  mean  in  reference  to  any  expres 
sion  of  a  thought.  I  delight  in  telling  what  I  think ; 


172  EMERSON   AT  HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

but  if  you  ask  me  why  I  dare  say  so,  or  why  it  is  so,  I 
am  the  most  helpless  of  mortal  men.  I  do  not  even  see 
that  either  of  these  questions  admits  of  an  answer,  so 
that  in  the  present  posture  of  affairs,  when  I  see  myself 
suddenly  raised  to  the  importance  of  a  heretic,  I  am  very 
uneasy  when  I  advert  to  the  supposed  duties  of  such  a 
personage,  who  is  to  make  good  his  thesis  against  all 
coiners.  I  certainly  shall  do  no  such  thing.  I  shall 
read  what  you  and  other  good  men  write,  as  I  have 
always  done,  glad  when  you  speak  my  thoughts,  and 
skipping  the  page  that  has  nothing  for  me.  I  shall  go 
on  just  as  before,  seeing  whatever  I  can,  and  telling 
what  I  see  ;  and,  I  suppose,  with  the  same  fortune  that 
has  hitherto  attended  me  —  the  joy  of  finding  that  my 
abler  and  better  brothers,  who  work  with  the  sympathy 
of  society,  loving  and  beloved,  do  now  and  then  unex 
pectedly  confirm  my  perception,  and  find  my  nonsense 
is  only  their  own  thought  in  motley.  And  so  I  am 
your  affectionate  servant,  —  R.W.E." 

Little  wonder  that  the  New  England  shepherds 
watching  their  flocks  by  night  should  have  been  sore 
afraid  when  this  light  shone  round  about  them.  But 
their  terror  could  not  quench  the  star  that  had  risen. 
"It  is  of  no  use,"  said  an  eminent  divine,  when  he 
heard  of  the  censure  on  the  Address  ;  ' '  henceforth  the 
young  men  will  have  a  fifth  Gospel  in  their  Testa 
ments." 

But  the  heroic  spirits  born  in  that  day,  had  it  been 
predicted  that  in  1870  the  heretic  of  1838  would  be  an 
official  instructor  of  Harvard  youth,  would  have  been 
amazed,  as  might  Paul  had  he  been  told  that  a  Cresar 
would  one  day  hold  the  stirrup  for  a  Christian  pontiff. 


SANGEEAL.  173 


XIX. 

SANGREAL. 

IN  the  "  Morte  cV Arthur  "  we  see  the  knights  gath 
ered  at  the  Round  Table  of  Arthur,  flower  of 
kings.  We  find  portrayed  the  splendour  of  the  court, 
the  tournaments,  luxuries,  gallantries  of  the  knights 
and  dames.  But  one  day,  while  they  sit  at  the  table, 
there  is  a  voice  of  thunder,  then  a  sunbeam ;  as  the 
stricken  knights  gaze  the  Sangreal  floats  in  shrouded 
in  white,  and,  when  it  has  floated  out  again,  each  feels 
that  he  has  tasted  that  which  he  most  desires  in  this 
world.  Then  rose  up  all  those  knights  and  vowed  that 
they  would  no  more  rest  until  they  had  found  the  Sang 
real  and  seen  it  unveiled.  King  Arthur  pleaded  against 
their  resolution,  but  they  must  leave  him.  Then  they 
go  about  the  world,  wandering  in  many  a  wild  place, 
righting  wrongs,  delivering  imprisoned  maidens,  sit 
ting  at  the  feet  of  wise  hermits,  fighting  down  fiends, 
until  at  length  Sir  Galahad,  just  after  he  has  casually 
helped  a  cripple,  finds  the  unveiled  Sangreal  and  as 
cends  to  heaven  with  it.  The  great  British  myth  is 
repeated  at  intervals  in  history.  There  arrives  a 
period  in  the  progress  of  the  people  when  their  best 
heads  discover  the  fictitious  character  of  the  rites  to 
which  they  are  sacramented,  and  when  the  best  hearts 


174  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

learn  their  secret,  and  then  the  thunder  and  the  sun 
beam  lead  on  the  true  thing  above  the  sham  ;  the  sang 
real  shames  the  sang  unreal,  and  the  Round  Table  of 
conventions  is  broken  up.  Amid  traditional  chalices 
and  fonts,  and  flameless  lamps,  unable  even  to  borrow 
oil  from  other  ages,  appears  the  burning  glory  appeal 
ing  to  every  brave  heart  to  win  for  itself —  to  leave  the 
dead  symbol  and  possess  the  reality.  Then  are  true 
souls  revealed.  They  make  their  vow  of  knighthood  ; 
no  bribe  or  persuasion  of  church  or  court  can  detain 
them  ;  they  are  compelled  by  a  noble  discontent ;  they 
are  drawn  by  a  pure  vision ;  they  have  tasted  that 
which  turns  detaining  dainties  to  poison ;  they  must 
seek  a  truth  and  honour  as  living  and  real  as  was  ever 
known  by  saint  or  saviour. 

Of  such  a  period  we  are  the  children.  The  sanctities, 
sacraments,  symbols,  of  an  exhausted  revelation  no 
longer  satisfy  any  heart  or  intellect.  We  have  seen 
in  our  own  time  what  the  life-blood  of  great  hearts, 
freely  shed  like  the  blood  of  Christ,  can  accomplish, 
and  the  Round  Table  of  Jerusalem  breaks  up.  The 
great  men  of  our  time,  by  whose  fresh  graves  we  stand 
— Darwin,  Emerson,  Carlyle,  Lincoln,  Garibaldi — were 
men  whose  lives  are  traced  in  transformations  ;  millions 
of  slaves  have  been  liberated,  nations  set  free,  science 
advanced,  torpid  intelligence  awakened ;  they  have 
been  on  earth  as  the  Sangreal,  or  its  prototype  the 
cornucopia,  from  which  all  have  been  nourished,  and 
have  risen  to  be  a  constellation  beneath  which  their 
words  and  works  shall  ripen  to  the  new  earth  that 
follows  the  new  heaven. 

The  quest  of  the  Sangreal  is  a  bosom  experience  to 


SANGREAL.  175 

all  who  share  the  development  of  their  generation. 
Every  youth,  whose  soul  suffers  no  arrest,  is  certain 
to  arrive  at  a  period  of  perception  when  the  old  sym 
bols  no  longer  satisfy  him,  when  he  turns  from  the 
conventional  chalice  however  cunningly  mixed,  and  is 
seized  with  a  longing  to  make  every  drop  of  his  blood 
real,  and  held  in  the  cup  of  a  flawless  heart. 

When  our  virginal  Sir  Galahad  in  America,  our 
Emerson,  refused  any  longer  to  touch  the  chalice  of 
his  Boston  church,  the  knights  around  him  did  not  at 
once  catch  his  vision  of  the  radiant  cup  floating  above 
it.  They  thought  him  mad.  The  thunder  and  the 
sunbeam  came  to  them  later,  when  they  had  gathered 
to  the  Round  Table  of  their  old  university.  There 
each  knightly  soul  found  that  he  had  tasted  that  which 
he  most  loved  of  all  on  earth.  They  could  no  more 
rest  in  that  to  which  they  had  been  sacramented. 

Among  those  who  listened  to  that  oration,  one 
preacher,  before  wont  to  discourse  on  such  themes  as 
the  duties  and  trials  of  milkmen,  went  home  to  enter 
in  his  journal:  "  My  soul  is  roused,  and  this  week  I 
shall  write  the  long-meditated  sermons  on  the  state  of 
the  Church  and  the  duties  of  these  times."  So  under 
the  electric  touch  of  Emerson  rose  Theodore  Parker. 

John  Weiss  —  an  effective  leader  of  the  new  religion 
— has  well  said  of  Emerson's  oration,  "  The  liberal 
gesture  itself  was  worth  a  whole  body  of  divinity."  The 
agitation  reached  the  form  of  a  coherent  controversy 
in  the  following  year,  when  the  chief  professor  of  the 
Divinity  College,  Andrews  Norton,  delivered  in  the 
same  place  an  answer  to  it,  afterwards  published  under 
the  title,  "  The  Latest  Form  of  Infidelity."  This  was 


170  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

replied  to  by  George  Ripley  and  Theodore  Parker. 
Ripley  maintained  that  Christianity  was  sufficiently 
proved  by  intuition.  Parker  supported  him,  and  main 
tained  that  miracles  are  true,  being  signs  of  all  great 
religious  teachers  (Buddha,  Zoroaster,  as  well  as 
Jesus) ,  but  not  proofs  of  their  doctrine  !  Norton  re 
plied  to  them,  and  the  controversy  filled  America  with 
excitement.  It  also  set  the  youth  to  reading  the  works 
of  the  great  German,  French,  and  English  philoso 
phers  whose  views  were  discussed  by  the  Harvard  dis 
putants. 

By  far  the  most  important  figure  in  this  controversy 
(from  which  Emerson  was  conspicuously  absent)  was 
that  of  Andrews  Norton,  Professor  of  Sacred  Litera 
ture  in  Harvard  University.  His  great  learning  and  his 
admirable  force  and  clearness  as  a  writer  were  still  of 
less  importance  than  his  intellectual  character  and  his 
severity  towards  every  kind  of  sham,  whether  con 
scious  of  itself  or  not.  The  young  men  who  undertook 
to  controvert  the  statements  of  Andrews  Norton  con 
cerning  the  anti-christian  nature  and  tendency  of 
Emerson's  views  —  George  Ripley  and  Theodore  Par 
ker —  wrote  well,  and  were  defeated.  The}^  were  try 
ing  to  base  the  Christian  ontology  on  intuition  in  order 
to  cast  discredit  on  supernatural  evidences  and  author 
ity.  "  Consciousness  or  intuition,"  said  Norton,  "can 
inform  us  of  nothing  but  what  exists  in  our  own  minds, 
including  the  relations  of  our  own  ideas.  It  is  there 
fore  not  an  intelligible  error,  but  a  mere  absurdity,  to 
maintain  thaj;  we  are  conscious  or  have  an  intuitive 
knowledge  of  the  being  of  God,  of  our  own  immor 
tality,  of  the  revelation  of  God  through  Christ,  or  of 


SANGREAL.  177 

any  other  fact  of  religion."  "Christianity  claims  to 
reveal  facts,  a  knowledge  of  which  is  essential  to  the 
moral  regeneration  of  men,  and  to  offer  in  attestation 
of  those  facts  the  only  satisfactory  proof —  the  author 
ity  of  God  evidenced  by  miraculous  displays  of  His 
power."  "  The  latest  form  of  infidelity  is  distinguished 
by  assuming  the  Christian  name  while  it  strikes  at  the 
root  of  faith  in  Christianity,  and  indirectly  at  all  reli 
gion,  by  denying  the  miracles  attesting  the  divine  mis 
sion  of  Christ."  These  affirmations,  buttressed  by 
impregnable  logic,  were  never  shaken. 

Thirty  years  ago  this  aged  scholar,  surrounded  by 
his  beautiful  daughters,  —  to  describe  whom  we  used  to 
borrow  the  title  of  his  book,  ' '  The  Evidences  of  Chris 
tianity,"  —  was  the  ideal  of  an  Arthur.  In  the  depths 
of  that  grove  behind  Divinity  College,  an  Avilion  to 
those  who  remember  the  home  it  embowered,  the  old 
man  sat,  his  grand  face  haloed  with  whitest  locks  and 
on  it  written  the  perfect  peace  that  follows  victory  over 
all  that  can  harm  the  spirit  of  man.  In  early  life  he 
had  suffered  pain,  long  and  keen,  by  failure  in  all  his 
attempts  to  preach,  after  carefully  preparing  himself. 
He  had  to  abandon  the  pulpit.  Then  he  wrote  the 
beautiful  hymn  so  widely  sung  in  America,  "  My  God, 
I  thank  Thee  !  "  The  last  verse  is  — 

Thy  various  messengers  employ, 

Thy  purposes  of  love  fulfil ; 
And  'mid  the  wreck  of  human  joy 

May  kneeling  faith  adore  thy  will !  " 

With  such  piety  had  he  looked  forth  over  the  deso 
lation  beyond  which  he  was  to  find  this  earthly  para- 


178  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

dise  !  He  was  now  calm,  and  mention  of  the  contro 
versy  of  fifteen  years  brought  no  flash  to  his  eye.  I 
remember  that  his  eye  did  flash  when  he  spoke  of  ' '  the 
practical  atheism  "  which  reigned  over  the  nation,  dis 
regarding  every  principle  of  justice  and  humanity. 
"  Theological  and  philosophical  controversies,"  he  said, 
"  seem  of  small  importance  in  the  presence  of  such 
evils."  "Flos  theologorum"  he  was,  and  the  last  of 
his  race. 

Emerson  was  from  the  first  at  one  with  the  principle 
of  his  honoured  antagonist.  His  bark  had  passed  to 
another  sea.  What  he  afterwards  wrote  of  Sweden- 
borg  and  Behmen  was  equally  true  of  his  friends  Parker 
and  Ripley, —  that  they  "both  failed  by  attaching 
themselves  to  the  Christian  symbol  instead  of  to  the 
moral  sentiment  which  carries  innumerable  Christian 
ities,  humanities,  divinities,  in  its  bosom."  Therefore 
Emerson  could  take  no  part  in  the  controversy.  And 
though  each  of  the  young  thinkers  had  tasted  the  holier 
sacrament  in  this  heart  whose  blood  was  shed  for  them, 
the  Sangreal  was  as  yet  veiled  from  their  eyes.  Dr. 
Lowell  would  now  probably  smile  at  two  lines  about 
Emerson  in  his  "  Fable  for  Critics  " — 

"  All  admire,  and  yet  scarely  six  converts  he's  got, 
To  1  don't  (nor  they  either)  exactly  know  what." 

When  he  came  to  write  his  poem  telling  how  Sir  Laun- 
fal  journeyed  far  but  found  the  Sangreal  at  his  own 
door,  Lowell  had  learned  the  secret. 

But  it  is  doubtful  whether  Theodore  Parker  ever 
comprehended  the  man  whose  touch  had  awakened  him 
to  the  recognition  of  that  task  he  so  faithfully  per- 


SANG REAL.  179 

formed.  Two  minds  could  hardly  be  more  differently 
moulded  than  those  of  these  distinguished  contem 
poraries.  Parker  was  certainly  a  product  of  the  new 
era  of  thought,  but  he  was  puzzled  by  Emerson's 
utterances  even  while  they  stirred  him.  There  was 
little  of  the  mystic  about  Parker ;  he  was  the  old 
English  deist  with  American  sympathies  and  forms  of 
speech.  So  although  in  those  days  he  used  to  be  found 
in  the  "  Olympicka,"  where  Emerson  and  his  "  cosmic 
questions  "  formed  the  chief  themes  of  the  New  Eng 
land  gods  and  goddesses  in  conclave,  he  would  go 
home  to  write  in  his  journal  such  prosaic  sentences  as 
this  :  "  Mr.  E.  says,  '  If  a  man  is  at  heart  just,  so  far 
he  is  God.'  Now,  it  seems  that  he  mistakes  likeness 
for  identity.  My  spirit  is  like  God,  but  is  it  necessarily 
God  ?  There  are  ten  peas  in  a  pod,  exactly  alike  in  all 
things  :  are  there  not  ten  peas,  and  not  one  alone  ? 
Now  if  a  man's  spirit  could  become  exactly  like  God's, 
would  his  be  the  same  as  God's?  "  &c.  After  reading 
this  we  cannot  wonder  that  the  interviews  between  the 
two  should  have  been  sometimes  disappointing.  Thus 
Parker  records  a  walk  with  some  friends  —  C.  P. 
Cranch,  poet  and  artist,  among  them  —  to  Concord,  in 
the  following  terms  :  "  We  all  assembled  and  took  tea 
with  R.  W.  E.  lie  and  Ripley  had  all  the  talk.  .  .  . 
Really  it  was  quite  too  bad.  The  only  good  thing  he 
said  was,  'Come  and  look  at  this  print  of  "Endy- 
mion,"  which  is  very  beautiful ;  so  likewise  is  its  rival, 
the  "  Coming  of  Morning,"  drawn  by  two  dappled 
steeds  and  attended  by  some  virgins,  daughters  of  the 
sun.'  Carlyle  sent  it  to  Mrs.  E.  In  our  walk  E.  ex 
pressed  to  me  his  admiration  of and  his  foolish 


180  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

article  in  the  4  Dial.'  He  said  it  was  full  of  life.  But, 

alas  !  the  life  is  Emerson's  and  not 's,  and  so  it  had 

been  lived  before."  Nevertheless,  Parker  rejoiced  in 
Emerson  ;  his  character  and  elevation  he  held  up  in  re 
ply  to  claims  of  the  Church  folk  to  a  monopoly  of  piety, 
and  one  of  his  stories  was  that  an  eminent  orthodox 
preacher,  asked  whether  he  supposed  Emerson  would 
go  to  hell,  replied  that  he  might  go  there,  but  no  doubt 
the  devil  would  be  so  embarrassed  about  his  disposal 
that  he  would  have  to  send  him  elsewhere  !  The  only 
time  I  remember  seeing  Parker  angry  was  when  some 
Unitarian  preacher,  alluding  publicly  to  Emerson's 
great  distress  at  the  loss  of  his  son  Waldo,  attributed 
it  to  his  lack  of  religious  faith.  When  the  tk  Massa 
chusetts  Quarterly"  was  projected  in  1847,  Parker 
named  Emerson  as  the  only  one  fit  to  be  its  editor,  a 
position  which  the  latter  accepted,  with  Parker  and 
Cabot  as  co-editors.  "  He  is,"  wrote  Parker,  "a 
downright  man;  we  never  had  such  a  jewel  in  America 
before.  I  think  him  worth  two  or  three  of  Dr.  Chan- 
ning." 

On  the  other  hand,  Emerson  strongly  admired  the 
courage  and  fidelity  of  the  great  Boston  preacher,  and 
after  his  death  spoke  of  him  in  these  words : 

" 'Tis  plain  tome  that  he  has  achieved  an  historic 
immortality  here  ;  that  he  has  so  woven  himself  in  these 
few  years  into  the  history  of  Boston,  that  he  can  never 
be  left  out  of  your  annals.  It  will  not  be  the  acts  of 
city  councils,  nor  of  obsequious  mayors,  nor,  in  the 
State  House,  the  proclamations  of  governors,  with  their 
failing  virtue  —  failing  them  at  critical  moments  —  that 
the  coming  generations  will  study  what  really  befell ; 


SANGREAL.  181 

but  in  the  plain  lessons  of  Theodore  Parker  in  the 
Music  Hall,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  or  in  Legislative  Com 
mittee-Rooms,  the  true  temper  and  authentic  record 
of  these  days  will  be  read.  The  next  generation 
will  care  little  for  the  chances  of  election  that  govern 
governors  now ;  it  will  care  little  for  fine  gentlemen 
who  behaved  shabbily,  but  it  will  read  very  intelli 
gently  in  his  rough  story,  fortified  with  exact  anec 
dotes,  precise  with  names  and  dates,  what  part  was 
taken  by  each  actor  ;  who  threw  himself  into  the  cause 
of  Humanity,  who  came  to  the  rescue  of  Civilisation 
at  a  hard  pinch,  and  who  blocked  its  course." 

Emerson  had  been  desired  by  Theodore  Parker's 
Society  to  make  the  chief  address  on  the  funeral  occa 
sion,  but  this  he  declined  to  do,  though  he  said  there 
the  best  words  in  his  honour.  I  received  a  note  from 
him,  dated  June  6,  I860,  in  which  he  refers  to  Parker, 
then  recently  dead,  and  to  the  answer  he  had  sent  to  the 
Society.  "  I  know  well  what  a  calamity  is  the  loss  of 
his  courage  and  patriotism  to  the  country  ;  but  of  his 
mind  and  genius  few  are  less  accurately  informed  than 
I.  It  is  for  you  and  Sanborn,  and  many  excellent 
young  men  who  stood  in  age  and  sensibility  hearers 
and  judges  of  all  his  discourse  and  action  —  for  you 
to  weigh  and  report.  My  relations  to  him  are  quite 
accidental,  and  our  differences  of  method  and  working 
such  as  really  required  and  honoured  all  his  Catholicism 
and  magnanimity  to  forgive  in  me." 

Theodore  Parker's  resolution,  entered  in  his  journal 
after  hearing  Emerson's  oration,  as  already  stated,  was 
followed  by  a  steady  progress  in  anti-supernaturalism, 
and  by  a  valiant  effort  to  introduce  that  into  the  Uni- 


182  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

tiirian  Church.  He  was  at  once  fastened  upon  as  a 
scapegoat  for  all  the  "  infidelity  "  of  the  time.  He  was 
by  no  means  so  radical  as  Emerson,  who,  however, 
escaped  the  lifelong  martyrdom  which  Parker  suffered. 
The  arch-heretic  was  too  much  of  an  artist  to  excite 
animosity.  The  soothsayer  who  prophesied  to  the 
Eastern  monarch  that  he  would  lose  all  his  family  and 
friends,  then  die  himself,  and  he  who  said,  "Your 
majesty  will  survive  all  your  relations,"  were  types  of 
the  different  ways  in  which  the  same  fact  was  some 
times  put ;  and  as  in  the  fable  one  soothsayer  was 
beheaded  and  the  other  rewarded,  so  in  this  religious 
controversy  in  America,  some  suffered  hatred  and 
abuse  for  a  radicalism  far  less  formidable  than  that  of 
Emerson. 

If  the  infinite  heart  of  Emerson  was  veiled  even  for 
many  true  knights  who  followed  its  attraction,  it  was 
shrouded  for  some  others  who  sought  to  borrow  his 
thought  for  sectarian  uses.  When  it  was  proposed  in 
the  Society  of  Alumni  of  the  Divinity  College  to  send 
a  message  of  sympathy  to  Theodore  Parker,  dying  in 
a  foreign  land,  the  proposal  was  stormily  refused  by  a 
majority  which  included  some  always  profuse  in  their 
admirations  of  Emerson.  This  was  the  old  unfailing 
sign  of  a  prophet  who  has  won  the  popular  heart.  No 
man  durst  lay  hands  on  him. 

I  have  before  me  the  scrap  of  a  letter  written  by 
Emerson  to  a  friend,  in  early  life  —  to  whom,  or  by 
whom  given  me  I  cannot  remember  —  in  which  he  says  : 
"  We  hearken  in  vain  for  any  profound  voice  speaking 
to  the  American  heart,  cheering  timid  good  men,  ani 
mating  the  youth,  consoling  the  defeated,  and  intelli- 


SANGREAL.  183 

gently  announcing  duties  which  clothe  life  with  joy  and 
endear  the  land  and  sea  to  men."  With  a  deliberation 
equalled  only  by  his  humility,  Emerson  set  himself  to 
break  this  dreary  stillness.  With  perfect  conviction 
that  the  hunger  of  hearts  was  for  the  truth  he  found 
satisfying ;  with  faith  in  the  spirit  of  man  beneath 
gainsayings  of  men's  lips  or  fears  ;  without  misgiving, 
without  self-defence,  as  one  who  brings  glad  tidings  ; 
so  he  spake,  and  the  human  heart  answered. 

In  truth,  Emerson  never  spoke  but  with  the  human 
race  behind  him,  and  the  flowers  of  all  devout  culture 
around  him ;  he  so  took  to  heart  the  teachings  of  all 
sages,  poets,  prophets,  that  they  beamed  in  his  face ; 
the  great  seemed  near  him,  as  one  re-affirming  the  truth 
of  their  lives.  His  negations  were  the  rescue  of  things 
eternal  from  their  ruins.  The  eye  never  lost  sight  of 
the  star  that  rose  above  them.  Where  shrill  polemics 
and  scoffing  denials  had  hidden  this  or  that  new-born 
truth  as  behind  uncouth  forms  of  the  stable,  here 
appeared  the  human  infant,  haloed,  and  all  the  gold, 
frankincense,  and  myrrh  around  it.  Reverence,  art, 
poetry,  literature,  all  the  fair  hopes  of  the  home  and 
of  society,  shone  now  on  the  side  of  ideal  right  and 
the  religion  of  reason,  while  the  unreformed  institu 
tions  were  placed  on  the  side  of  denial,  and  appeared 
as  if  turned  to  grey  fortresses. 


184  EMEKSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABliOAD. 


XX. 


BUILDING  TABERNACLES. 

AMID  the  confusion  in  the  Unitarian  circle  caused 
by  Emerson's  oration,  the  most  pathetic  figure 
was  that  of  old  Dr.  Channing,  who  sees  another  ocean 
ahead  just  as  he  was  preparing  to  land.  The  shore, 
then,  as  in  the  case  of  Columbus,  has  turned  out  to  be 
a  tinted  cloud  on  the  horizon  ! 

A  significant  incident  has  been  lately  told  by  Rev. 
W.  C.  Gannet,  son  of  Dr.  Channing's  successor.  In 
Channing' s  church  it  had  been  the  custom  for  many 
years  to  sing  "  Old  Hundred  "  at  the  close  of  the  ser 
vices,  but  one  day,  about  fifty  years  ago,  the  choir 
conspired  among  themselves  to  close  with  another 
hymn,  whereupon  they  were  visited  with  such  wrath 
from  the  astounded  congregation,  that  "  Old  Hun 
dred  "  sounded  on  twoscore  years  longer. 

The  incident  was  a  fit  prelude  to  the  effort  made  by 
Channing  to  introduce  the  Transcendental  theme  into 
Unitarianism.  In  the  earlier  days  of  the  movement, 
Margaret  Fuller  used  to  pass  much  of  her  time  reading 
to  him  from  the  Germans,  whose  language  he  did  not 
understand,  and  Theodore  Parker  remembered  the  sim 
plicity  with  which  the  aged  preacher  expressed  the 
hope  that  some  heretic  would  translate  Strauss's 


BUILDING    TABERNACLES.  185 

"  Leben  Jesu."  Channing  suspected  that  the  Har 
vard  King  Arthur  had  not  gone  the  right  way  about 
holding  together  his  Round  Table.  Professor  Norton's 
severe  pamphlets,  which  really  held  the  knights  to 
veracity  in  their  use  of  words,  seemed  to  the  elo 
quent  preacher  somewhat  intolerant.  ' '  The  Unitarian 
body,"  he  wrote,  "seems  to  be  forsaking  its  first 
love  —  its  liberality,  its  respect  for  the  rights  of  indi 
vidual  judgment,  its  separation  cf  the  essential  from 
the  unessential  in  Christianity.  I  have  felt  for  years 
that  it  must  undergo  important  developments.  It 
began  as  a  protest  against  the  rejection  of  reason. 
It  pledged  itself  to  progress  as  its  life  and  end ;  but 
it  has  gradually  grown  stationary,  and  now  we  have  a 
Unitarian  orthodoxy."  With  this  feeling  he  had  joined 
the  young  thinkers,  then  known  as  the  "  Friends  of 
Progress,"  who  used  to  meet  in  country  places.  They 
all  "regarded  themselves  as  Christians,"  and,  so  long 
as  that  old  flag  floated  above  the  company,  the  Round 
Table  was  in  happy  condition.  These  "Friends  of 
Progress  "  had  in  September,  1836,  the  year  and  month 
in  which  Emerson's  "  Nature"  had  appeared,  formed 
their  "  Symposium,"  which  subsequently  received 
the  name  of  "The  Transcendental  Club,"  and,  after 
Emerson's  oration,  it  began  to  contemplate  some  kind 
of  public  organisation  and  work.  But  Channing  had 
built  his  new  Christianity  upon  the  pre-existence  and 
mediatorial  office  of  Christ.  To  this  idea  Emerson's 
idea  was  directly  fatal.  "  We  must  get  rid  of  Christ," 
he  said  once  to  Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  "No,  Mr. 
Emerson,"  replied  the  other,  "  we  cannot  do  without 
Christ."  But  Emerson,  who  had  justified  Jesus  even 


186  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

in  his  claim  to  he  divine,  was  resolute  in  his  adherence 
to  Paul's  prophecy,  "Then  shall  also  the  son  be  sub 
ject  unto  him  who  put  all  things  under  him,  that  God 
may  be  all  in  all." 

Elizabeth  Peabody,  in  her  "  Reminiscences  of  Wil 
liam  Ellery  Channing,"  relates  an  interesting  incident 
of  Emerson.  "When  he  was  revising  the  proof  of  the 
Divinity  College  oration  she  suggested  the  alteration 
of  a  letter  in  the  passage  where  he  speaks  of  Chris 
tianity  as  dwelling  "  with  noxious  exaggeration  about 
t\\e  person  of  Jesus."  "The  soul  knows  no  persons," 
he  says.  ' '  It  invites  every  man  to  expand  to  the  full 
circle  of  the  universe,  and  will  have  no  preference  but 
those  of  spontaneous  love.  But  by  this  Eastern  mon 
archy  of  a  Christianity,  which  indolence  and  fear  have 
built,  the  friend  of  man  is  made  the  injurer  of  man." 
Miss  Peabody  wished  him  to  "  put  a  large  F  to  desig 
nate  Jesus  as  the  friend  of  souls."  After  a  moment's 
thought  Emerson  replied,  "  No  :  directly  I  put  in  that 
large  F  they  will  all  go  to  sleep." 

There  stands  the  small  "  f,"  beautiful  as  Giotto's  O, 
announcing  the  true  master  that  had  come.  There  was 
to  be  no  more  sleep  among  those  whom  this  new  word 
had  reached.  Parker,  Ripley,  and  others  might  man 
age  to  call  themselves  Christians  for  a  time,  and  Chan 
ning  might  endeavour  to  form  again  in  Boston  the 
Round  Table  dispersed  at  Cambridge.  In  vain  !  The 
Quest  must  go  on.  At  length  Dr.  Channing  sees  that, 
so  far  from  Unitarianism  being  able  to  contain  the  new 
movement,  Christianity  itself  was  an  insufficient  taber 
nacle  for  it.  "I  see  and  feel,"  he  writes  in  1840, 
"the  harm  done  by  this  crude  speculation,  whilst  I 


BUILDING   TABERNACLES.  187 

also  see  much  nobleness  to  bind  me  to  its  advocates. 
In  its  opinions  generally  I  see  nothing  to  give  me  hope." 
A  year  later  he  says  (to  James  Martineau)  of  the 
Transcendentalists  :  "  They  are  anxious  to  defend  the 
soul's  immediate  connection  with  God,  and  are  in  dan 
ger  of  substituting  private  inspiration  for  Christianity." 
With  almost  the  same  words  the  Puritans  had  banished 
the  Quakers  two  hundred  years  before.  So  wrote 
Channing  in  1841  :  the  next  year  he  was  dead. 

Over  the  grave  of  Channing  the  Transcendentalists 
were  the  chief  mourners.  Because  of  his  anti-slavery 
sermons,  even  more  than  his  other  heresies,  Boston 
paid  no  public  honours  to  his  memory.  But  one  organ 
expressed  regret  at  this — the  "Dial."  "Dr.  Chan 
ning,"  it  said  "was  a  man  of  so  much  rectitude,  and 
such  power  to  express  his  sense  of  right,  that  his  value 
to  this  country,  of  which  he  was  a  kind  of  public  con 
science^  can  hardly  be  over-estimated.  Not  only  his 
merits,  but  his  limitations  also,  which  made  all  his 
virtues  and  talents  intelligible  and  available  for  the 
correction  and  elevation  of  society,  made  our  Cato  dear, 
and  his  loss  is  not  to  be  repaired." 

During  all  this  time  the  lectures  of  Emerson  were 
going  steadily  on  —  diffused  also  by  the  "Dial"  and 
in  volumes  —  with  increasingly  wonderful  results.  As 
Dr.  Holmes  has  said,  "  Here  was  an  iconoclast  without 
a  hammer,  who  took  down  our  idols  from  their  pedestals 
so  tenderly  that  it  seemed  like  an  act  of  worship." 
The  Unitarians  were  bewildered  as  one  after  another 
their  brightest  young  men  caught  the  new  enthusiasm. 
At  first  it  brought  out  a  good  deal  of  the  New  England 
pulpit  humour.  One  divine,  on  his  return  from  a  visit 


188  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

to  Concord,  from  which  much  was  expected,  opened 
with  the  hymn  "  Thou  first  great  cause,  least  under 
stood,"  and  preached  on  the  text,  "  I  saw  an  altar  with 
this  inscription,  To  an  unknown  God."  Dr.  Froth- 
ingham,  whose  son  is  the  sympathetic  historian  of 
Transcendentalism,  preached  about  Emerson  from  the 
text  "Some  said- that  it  thundered,  others  that  an 
angel  spoke."  Dr.  Burnap  of  Baltimore  described 
Transcendentalism  as  "  a  new  philosophy  which  has 
risen,  maintaining  that  nothing  is  everything  in  gen 
eral,  and  everything  is  nothing  in  particular." 

Some  of  these  ministers,  however,  were  influenced 
in  a  way  which  I  heard  a  young  preacher  describe  in  a 
Western  pulpit.  "  In  the  early  days  of  California,  a 
preacher  went  out  to  save  the  souls  of  gold-diggers, 
who  himself  was  not  averse  to  picking  up  nuggets  with 
which  the  New  Jerusalem  is  paved.  On  one  occasion 
whilst  he  was  praying  at  a  grave,  some  one  stirred  the 
earth  heap,  and  a  little  yellow  dust  appeared.  One 
after  another  of  the  mourning  bystanders  rushed  off  to 
buy  up  the  '  claim,'  and  presently  the  preacher  peeped 
through  his  eyelids,  and,  seeing  the  situation,  pro 
nounced  an  instant  Amen,  and  also  ran  off  to  try  and 
secure  the  treasure.  In  the  same  way  Germany  crum 
bled  a  little  gold  dust  beside  the  grave  of  orthodoxy ; 
Emerson,  Parker,  Ripley,  and  the  rest  rushed  off  first, 
and  at  length  even  Channing  stopped  in  his  prayers 
over  the  dead,  to  try  and  catch  up  with  the  rest." 

There  was  a  multitude  simply  dazzled  by  the  trans 
figured  man,  and  at  once  bent  on  building  a  tabernacle 
for  him.  Of  course  it  must  be  along  with  tabernacles 
for  Moses  and  Elias,  for  the  Law  and  Prophecy  of  tra- 


BUILDING   TABERNACLES.  189 

dition,  but  these  they  believed  might  be  reconstructed. 
How  deeply  the  orthodox  were  stirred  was  shewn  in 
many  ways.  George  Bradford  (in  the  "  Memorial 
History  of  Boston")  relates  that  one  of  the  meetings 
of  the  Transcendental  Club  was  made  memorable  by 
an  eloquent  outburst  from  Father  Taylor.  The  subject 
related  to  preaching,  and  the  Methodist,  present  by 
invitation,  was  asked  for  his  views.  "He  had  been 
sitting  silent  while  the  others  talked,  knitting  his  brows, 
with  his  green  spectacles  thrown  up  on  his  forehead, 
leaning  forward  or  shifting  about  on  his  chair.  When 
he  began  to  speak,  he  soon  rose  to  his  feet,  and,  warm 
ing  as  he  went  on,  in  a  sort  of  indignant  and  sorrowful 
eloquence,  by  and  by  took  his  hearers  off  their  feet, 
and  they  were  carried  away  as  by  a  flood.  He  rebuked 
the  shortcomings  of  the  various  religious  sects,  not 
sparing  his  own,  the  Methodists,  characterising  the 
faults  or  peculiarities  of  each  with  sarcastic  wit  and  a 
sort  of  grim  but  fervent  satire.  .  .  .  When  he  got 
through,  the  company  were  so  deeply  impressed  that 
they  were  for  the  most  part  disposed  to  entire  silence, 
and  though  some  desultory  attempts  were  made  to 
renew  and  continue  the  discussion,  all  other  speech 
seemed  so  cold  and  hard  after  the  glowing  words  they 
had  heard,  and  so  out  of  harmony  with  their  mood, 
that  the  company  soon  broke  up." 

In  1840  the  tabernacle-builders  held  a  grand  con 
vention  in  Boston,  called  by  "  The  Friends  of  Universal 
Progress."  Emerson  attended,  but  did  not  speak.  We 
have,  however,  his  report  in  the  "  Dial." 

"  The  composition  of  the  assembly  was  rich  and 
various.  The  singularity  and  latitude  of  the  summons 


190  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

drew  together,  from  all  parts  of  New  England,  and  also 
from  the  Middle  States,  men  of  every  shade  of  opinion, 
from  the  straitest  orthodoxy  to  the  wildest  heresy,  and 
many  persons  whose  church  was  a  church  of  one  mem 
ber  only.  A  great  variety  of  dialect  and  of  costume 
was  noticed;  a  great  deal  of  confusion,  eccentricity, 
and  freak  appeared,  as  well  as  of  zeal  and  enthusiasm. 
If  the  assembly  was  disorderly,  it  was  picturesque. 
Madmen,  madwomen,  men  with  beards,  Dunkers, 
Muggletonians,  Come-outers,  Groaners,  Agrarians, 
Seventh-day  Baptists,  Quakers,  Abolitionists,  Calvin- 
ists,  Unitarians,  and  Philosophers,  —  all  came  succes 
sively  to  the  top  and  seized  their  moment,  if  not  their 
hour,  wherein  to  chide,  or  pray,  or  preach,  or  protest. 
The  faces  were  a  study.  The  most  daring  innovators 
and  the  champions  until  death  of  the  old  cause,  sat 
side  by  side.  The  still  living  merit  of  the  oldest  New 
England  families,  glowing  yet  after  several  generations, 
encountered  the  founders  of  families,  fresh  merit 
emerging  and  expanding  the  brows  to  a  new  breath, 
and  lighting  a  clownish  face  with  sacred  fire.  The 
assembly  was  characterised  by  the  predominance  of  a 
certain  plain,  sylvan  strength  and  earnestness,  whilst 
many  of  the  most  intellectual  and  cultivated  persons 
attended  its  councils.  Dr.  Channing,  Edward  Taylor, 
Bronson  Alcott,  Mr.  Garrison,  Mr.  May,  Theodore 
Parker,  II.  C.  Wright,  Dr.  Osgood,  William  Adams, 
Edward  Palmer,  Jones  Very,  Maria  W.  Chapman,  and 
many  other  persons  of  a  mystical,  or  sectarian,  or  phi 
lanthropic  renown  were  present,  and  some  of  them  par 
ticipant.  And  there  was  no  want  of  female  speakers : 
Mrs.  Little  and  Mrs.  Lucy  Sessions  took  a  pleasing 


BUILDING   TABERNACLES.  191 

and  memorable  part  in  the  debate,  and  that  flea  of  con 
ventions,  Mrs.  Abigail  Folsoni,  was  but  too  ready  with 
her  interminable  scroll.  If  there  was  not  parliamentary 
order,  there  was  life,  and  the  assurance  of  that  condi 
tional  love  for  religion  and  religious  liberty  which  in 
all  periods  characterises  the  inhabitants  of  this  part  of 
America. 

"There  was  a  great  deal  of  wearisome  speaking  in 
each  of  those  three-days'  sessions,  but  relieved  by  sig 
nal  passages  of  pure  eloquence,  by  much  vigour  of 
thought,  and  especially  by  the  exhibition  of  character 
and  by  the  victories  of  character.  These  men  and 
women  were  in  search  of  something  better  and  more 
satisfying  than  a  vote  or  a  definition,  and  they  found 
what  they  sought,  or  the  pledge  of  it,  in  the  attitude 
taken  by  individuals  of  their  number  of  resistance  to 
the  insane  routine  of  parliamentary  usage,  in  the  lofty 
reliance  on  principles,  and  the  prophetic  dignity  and 
transfiguration  which  accompanies,  even  amidst  oppo 
sition  and  ridicule,  a  man  whose  mind  is  made  up  to 
obey  the  great  inward  commander,  and  who  does  not 
anticipate  his  own  action,  but  awaits  confidently  the 
new  emergency  for  the  new  counsel." 

Emerson  selected  for  publication  the  speech  of  a 
mechanic  named  Whiting,  —  hailing  from  the  town  of 
Webster,  —  in  reading  which  one  reflects  how  often  the 
lowliest  of  philosophers  in  praising  others  was  alone 
unconscious  that  he  was  praising  himself.  Although 
Emerson  did  not  ascend  the  tribune  nor  open  his  lips, 
in  a  sense  he  made  a  majority  of  the  speeches.  Through 
the  stirred  soul  and  impassioned  lips  of  the  mechanic 
he  concluded  with  these  words  a  speech  about  the 


192  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

Bible:  "  Above  all  tilings,  maintain  the  right  of  the 
living  soul,  of  every  individual  man,  to  judge,  unhesi 
tatingly  and  unqualifiedly,  everything  in  the  past  and 
all  of  the  present ;  remembering  always  that  the  soul 
is  its  own  authority,  is  bound  by  its  own  laws,  does 
not  live  in  the  past,  but  is  now.  It  is  greater  than  all 
books  —  is  antecedent  to  them  all.  It  is  the  maker  of 
them  ;  and  cannot  be  made  subject  to  them  until  the 
Creator  can  be  placed  in  bondage  to  his  own  workman 
ship.  When  this  great  truth  shall  fill  the  human  heart, 
and  be  shadowed  forth  in  human  life,  then  the  morning 
of  the  Universal  Resurrection  will  dawn,  then  man 
shall  arise  from  his  grovelling  position  among  the  cof 
fins,  the  bones  and  ashes  of  a  buried  Past,  and  live, 
and  grow,  and  expand  in  the  bright  sunlight  of  that 
Eternity  in  which  he  dwells." 

This  congress,  long  remembered  as  the  "  Chardon 
Street  Convention,"  was  pentecost  of  the  new  gospel, 
its  translation  into  many  tongues  by  the  fire  that  burns 
through  personal  prejudices ;  and  this  phenomenon, 
now  as  of  old,  implies  a  nearness  of  some  heaven,  and 
expectancy  of  a  kingdom  at  hand.  And  as,  in  this 
case,  the  old  heavens  were  faded,  and  no  returning 
Messiah  looked  for,  it  became  necessary  for  the  enthu 
siasts  to  try  and  build  a  heaven  of  their  own.  Hence, 
Brook  Farm.  They  who  have  known  the  same  spirit 
ual  baptism  must  have  all  things  in  common.  The 
preamble  of  the  constitution  of  Brook  Farm  must  be 
placed  on  record. 

"  In  order  more  effectually  to  promote  the  great  pur 
poses  of  human  culture  ;  to  establish  the  external  rela 
tions  of  life  on  a  basis  of  wisdom  and  purity  ;  to  apply 


BUILDING   TABERNACLES. 


193 


the  principles  of  justice  and  love  to  our  social  organi 
sation  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  Divine  Provi 
dence  ;  to  substitute  a  system  of  brotherly  co-opera 
tion  for  one  of  selfish  competition  ;  to  secure  to  our 
children,  and  those  who  may  be  intrusted  to  our  care, 
the  benefits  of  the  highest  physical,  intellectual,  and 
moral  education  which  in  the  progress  of  knowledge 
the  resources  at  our  command  will  permit  ;  to  institute 
an  attractive,  efficient,  and  productive  system  of  indus 
try  ;  to  prevent  the  exercise  of  worldly  anxiety  by  the 
competent  supply  of  our  necessary  wants  ;  to  diminish 
the  desire  of  excessive  accumulation  by  making  the 
acquisition  of  individual  property  subservient  to  up 
right  and  disinterested  uses  ;  to  guarantee  to  each  other 
for  ever  the  means  of  physical  support  and  of  spiritual 
progress  ;  and  thus  to  impart  a  greater  freedom,  sim 
plicity,  truthfulness,  refinement,  and  moral  dignity  to 
our  mode  of  life  ;  —  we,  the  undersigned,  do  unite  in 
a  voluntary  association,  and  adopt  and  ordain  the  fol 
lowing  articles  of  agreement."  Among  "  the  under 
signed  "  was  not  the  name  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 


194  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 


XXI. 

A  SIX  YEARS'  DAY-DREAM. 

AND  so,  said  Emerson  in  the  first  number  of  the 
"Dial,"  "with  diligent  hands  and  good  intent 
we  set  down  our  '  Dial*  on  the  earth.  We  wish  it  may 
resemble  that  instrument  in  its  celebrated  happiness, 
that  of  measuring  no  hours  but  those  of  sunshine.  Let 
it  be  one  cheerful  rational  voice  amidst  the  din  of 
mourners  and  polemics.  Or,  to  abide  by  our  chosen 
image,  let  it  be  such  a  dial,  not  as  the  dead  face  of  a 
clock  —  hardly,  even,  such  as  the  gnomon  in  a  garden 
— but  rather  such  a  dial  as  the  garden  itself,  in  whose 
leaves  and  flowers  and  fruits  the  suddenly  awakened 
sleeper  is  instantly  apprised,  not  what  part  of  dead 
time,  but  what  state  of  life  and  growth,  is  now  arrived 
and  arriving." 

With  this  sentence,  which  Rabelais  would  have  set 
up  in  gold  in  his  clockless  Abbey  of  Thclema,  appeared 
that  magazine  which  lasted  through  the  morning  hours 
of  the  movement  it  registered.  It  was  set  upon  the 
earth,  and  the  days  were  marked  by  the  closing  of 
errors,  the  unfolding  of  truths,  gently  and  sweetly  as 
in  the  floral  dial  of  Linnaeus.  Some  weeds  were,  in 
deed,  intermingled,  but  no  poisons  ;  and  if  one  would 
know  the  spirit  of  this  American  movement,  let  him 


A  six  YEARS'  DAY-DREAM.  195 

compare  the  records  of  any  controversy  in  Christian 
annals  with  these  which  report  the  deliverance  of 
America  from  them  all.  Margaret  Fuller  and  Emerson 
edited  it,  but  in  the  most  catholic  spirit.  Through  this 
organ  men  and  women  since  eminent  gave  their  early 
thoughts  to  the  world,  and  around  these  for  leading 
strains  there  is  a  chorus  of  clever  writers,  all  of  whom 
are  so  charged  with  the  new  ideas  that  their  voices 
seem  to  come  from  aerial  land  raised  above  the  every 
day  world. 

But  the  "  Dial''  had  not  been  long  published  before 
these  scattered  feeders  on  honeydew  had  come  to  know 
each  other,  and  it  was  inevitable  that  their  insulation 
from  the  general  wovld  should  lead  to  t'.ie  formation  of 
some  project  like  that  which  was  already  leading  rest 
less  minds  westward  from  Europe.  Emerson  has  traced 
the  origin  of  the  Brook  Earm  community  to  a  consulta 
tion  between  Dr.  Channing  and  George  Ripley  upon 
the  practicability  of  bringing  thoughtful  and  cultivated 
people  together  and  forming  a  society  that  should  be 
satisfactory.  "That  good  attempt,"  said  Mr.  Emer 
son,  "  ended  in  an  oyster-supper  with  excellent  wines." 
Afterward,  however,  it  was  revived  in  Brook  Farm, 
which,  Emerson  thinks,  showed  sufficiently  that  farming 
and  scholarship  were  not  exactly  synonymous.  "  The 
ladies  took  cold  on  washing-days,  and  it  was  ordained 
that  the  gentlemen-shepherds  should  hang  out  the 
clothes,  which  they  punctually  did ;  but  a  great  ana 
chronism  followed  in  the  evening,  for  when  they  began 
to  dance,  the  clothes-pins  dropped  plentifully  from 
their  pockets.  .  .  .  One  hears  the  frequent  statement 
of  the  country  members  that  0110  man  was  ploughing 


196  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

all  clay  and  another  was  looking  out  of  the  window  all 
day  —  perhaps  drawing  his  picture  —  and  they  both 
received  the  same  wages."  Emerson  had  not  faith 
enough  in  the  feasibility  of  such  a  community,  had  it 
been  possible  for  him  to  surrender  his  time  for  the  dis 
posal  of  the  wisest  counsel,  to  become  a  resident ;  but 
he  was  a  frequent  visitor,  and  his  coming  caused  more 
sensation  than  if  he  had  been  an  archbishop. 

The  publication  of  Hawthorne's  "Note-Books," 
which  contain  such  lively  descriptions  of  his  life  at 
Brook  Farm,  elicited  an  interesting  paper  in  "  Harper's 
Magazine"  from  George  W.  Curtis,  of  whom  Haw 
thorne  speaks  in  "The  Blithedale  Romance"  as  the 
man  who  could  best  write  the  real  history  of  that  very 
interesting  movement. 

"When  the  experiment  began  at  Brook  Farm,  there 
was  no  doubt  in  conservative  circles  that  for  their  sins 
this  offshoot  of  Bedlam  was  permitted  in  the  neighbour 
hood.  What  it  was,  what  it  was  meant  to  be,  were 
equally  inexplicable.  Are  they  fools,  knaves,  mad 
men,  or  mere  sentimentalists?  Is  this  Coleridge  and 
Southey  again,  with  their  Pantisocracy  and  Susque- 
hanna  Paradise?  Is  it  a  vast  nursery  of  infidelity? 
and  is  it  true  that  'the  abb£  or  religieux'  sacrifices 
white  oxen  to  Jupiter  in  the  back  parlour  ?  What  may 
not  be  true,  since  it  is  within  Theodore  Parker's  parish, 
and  his  house,  crammed  with  books,  and  modest  under 
the  singing  pines,  is  only  a  mile  away?  These  extraor 
dinary  and  vague  and  hostile  impressions  were  not 
relieved  by  the  appearance  of  such  votaries  of  the  new 
shrine  as  appeared  in  the  staid  streets  and  halls  of  the 
city.  There  is  always  a  certain  amount  of  oddity  latent 


A  six  YEARS'  DAY-DREAM.  197 

in  society  which  rushes  to  such  an  enterprise  as  a  natu 
ral  vent ;  and  in  youth  itself  there  is  a  similar  latent 
and  boundless  protest  against  the  friction  and  apparent 
unreason  of  the  existing  order.  At  the  time  of  the 
Brook  Farm  enterprise  this  was  everywhere  observable. 
The  freedom  of  the  anti-slavery  reform  and  its  discus 
sions  had  developed  the  '  come-outers,'  who  bore  testi 
mony  in  all  times  and  places  against  church  and  state. 
Mr.  Emerson  mentions  an  apostle  of  the  gospel  of  love 
and  no  money,  who  preached  zealously,  but  never 
gathered  a  large  church  of  believers.  Then  there  were 
the  protestants  against  the  sin  of  flesh-eating,  refining 
into  curious  metaphysics  upon  milk,  eggs,  and  oysters. 
To  purloin  milk  from  the  udder  was  to  injure  the  mater 
nal  affections  of  the  cow ;  to  eat  eggs  was  Feejee  can 
nibalism,  and  the  destruction  of  the  tender  germ  of 
life ;  to  swallow  an  oyster  was  to  mask  murder.  A 
still  selector  circle  denounced  the  chains  that  shackled 
the  tongue,  and  the  false  delicacy  that  clothed  the 
body.  Profanity,  they  said,  is  not  the  use  of  forcible 
and  picturesque  words  ;  it  is  the  abuse  of  such  to  ex 
press  base  passions  and  emotions.  So  indecency  can 
not  be  affirmed  of  the  model  of  all  grace,  the  human 
body.  The  fig-leaf  is  the  sign  of  the  Fall.  Man  re 
turning  to  Paradise  will  leave  it  behind.  The  priests 
of  this  faith,  therefore,  felt  themselves  called  upon  to 
rebuke  true  profanity  and  indecency  by  sitting  at  their 
front-doors  upon  Sunday  mornings  with  no  other  cloth 
ing  than  that  of  the  pre-fig-leaf  period,  tranquilly  but 
loudly  conversing  in  the  most  stupendous  oaths,  by 
way  of  conversational  chiaroscuro,  while  a  deluded 
world  went  shuddering  by  to  church.  These  were 


198  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

harmless  freaks  and  individual  phantasies.  But  the 
time  was  like  the  time  of  witchcraft.  The  air  magni 
fied  and  multiplied  every  appearance,  and  exceptions 
and  idiosyncrasies  and  ludicrous  follies  were  regarded 
as  the  rule,  and  as  the  logical  masquerade  of  this  foul 
fiend  Transcendentalism,  which  was  evidently  unap 
peasable,  and  was  about  to  devour  manners,  morals, 
religion,  and  common-sense.  If  Father  Lawson  or 
Abby  Folsom  were  borne  by  main  force  from  an  anti- 
slavery  meeting,  and  the  non-resistants  pleaded  that 
those  protestants  had  as  good  a  right  to  speak  as  any 
body,  and  that  what  was  called  their  senseless  tuttle 
was  probably  inspired  wisdom,  if  people  were  only 
heavenly-minded  enough  to  understand  it,  it  was  but 
another  sign  of  the  impending  anarchy.  And  what 
was  to  be  said  —  for  you  could  not  call  them  old  do 
tards  —  when  the  younger  protestants  of  the  time  came 
walking  through  the  sober  streets  of  Boston  and  seated 
themselves  in  concert-halls  and  lecture-rooms,  with 
hair  parted  in  the  middle  and  falling  on  their  shoulders, 
and  clad  in  garments  such  as  no  human  being  ever 
wore  before  —  garments  which  seemed  to  be  a  com 
promise  between  the  blouse  of  the  Paris  workmen  and 
the  peignoir  of  a  possible  sister  ?  For  tailoring  under 
went  the  same  revision  to  which  the  whole  philosophy 
of  life  was  subjected,  and  one  ardent  youth,  asserting 
that  the  human  form  itself  suggested  the  proper  shape 
of  its  garments,  caused  trousers  to  be  constructed  that 
closely  fitted  the  leg,  and  bore  his  testimony  to  the 
truth  in  coarse  crash  breeches. 

"  These  were  the  ludicrous  aspects  of  the  intellectual 
and  moral  fermentation  or  agitation  that  was  called 


A  six  YEARS'  DAY  DREAM.  199 

Transcendentalism.  And  these  were  foolishly  accepted 
by  many  as  its  chief  and  only  signs.  It  was  supposed 
that  the  folly  was  complete  at  Brook  Farm,  and  it  was 
indescribably  ludicrous  to  observe  reverend  doctors 
and  other  dons  coming  out  to  gaze  upon  the  extraor 
dinary  spectacle,  and  going  about  as  dainty  ladies  hold 
their  skirts  and  daintily  step  from  stone  to  stone  in  a 
muddy  street,  lest  they  be  soiled.  The  dons  seemed 
to  doubt  whether  the  mere  contact  had  not  smirched 
them.  But,  droll  in  itself,  it  was  a  thousand-fold  droll 
er  when  Theodore  Parker  came  through  the  woods  and 
described  it.  With  his  head  set  low  upon  his  gladiato 
rial  shoulders,  and  his  nasal  voice  in  subtle  and  ex 
quisite  mimicry  reproducing  what  was  truly  laughable, 
yet  all  with  infinite  bonhomie  and  with  a  genuine 
superiority  to  small  malice,  he  was  as  humorous  as  he 
was  learned,  and  as  excellent  a  man  as  he  was  noble 
and  fervent  and  humane  a  preacher.  On  Sundays  a 
party  always  went  from  the  Farm  to  Mr.  Parker's  little 
country  church.  He  was  there  exactly  what  he  was 
afterwards  when  he  preached  to  thousands  of  eager 
people  in  the  Boston  Music  Hall ;  the  same  plain, 
simple,  rustic,  racy  man.  His  congregation  were  his 
personal  friends.  They  loved  him  and  admired  him 
and  were  proud  of  him  ;  and  his  geniality  and  tender 
sympathy,  his  ample  knowledge  of  things  as  well  as  of 
books,  his  jovial  manliness  and  sturdy  independence, 
drew  to  him  all  ages  and  sexes  and  conditions. 

11  The  society  at  Brook  Farm  was  composed  of  every 
kind  of  person.  There  were  the  ripest  scholars,  men 
and  women  of  the  most  aesthetic  culture  and  accom 
plishment,  young  farmers,  seamstresses,  mechanics, 


200  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

preachers  —  the  industrious,  the  lazy,  the  conceited, 
the  sentimental.  But  they  were  associated  in  such  a 
spirit  and  under  such  conditions  that,  with  some  ex 
travagance,  the  best  of  everybody  appeared,  and  there 
was  a  kind  of  esprit  de  corps,  at  least  in  the  earlier  or 
golden  age  of  the  colony.  There  was  plenty  of  steady, 
essential  hard  work,  for  the  founding  of  an  earthly 
Paradise  upon  a  rough  New  England  farm  is  no  pas 
time.  But  with  the  best  intention,  and  much  practical 
knowledge  and  industry  and  devotion,  there  was  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  an  inevitable  lack  of  method,  and 
the  economical  failure  was  almost  a  foregone  conclu 
sion.  But  there  were  never  such  witty  potato  patches 
and  such  sparkling  cornfields  before  or  since.  The 
weeds  were  scratched  out  of  the  ground  to  the  music 
of  Tennyson  or  Browning,  and  the  nooning  was  an 
hour  as  gay  and  bright  as  any  brilliant  midnight  at 
Ambrose's." 

"It  is  to  the  Transcendentalism  that  seemed  to  so 
many  good  souls  both  wicked  and  absurd  that  some  of 
the  best  influences  of  American  life  to-day  are  due. 
The  spirit  that  was  concentrated  at  Brook  Farm  is  dif 
fused,  but  it  is  not  lost.  As  an  organised  effort,  after 
many  downward  changes,  it  failed;  but  those  who 
remember  the  Hive,  the  Eyrie,  the  Cottage  —  when 
Margaret  Fuller  came  and  talked,  radiant  with  bright 
humour  ;  when  Emerson  and  Parker  and  Hedge  joined 
the  circle  for  a  night  or  a  day  ;  when  those  who  may 
not  be  publicly  named  brought  beauty  and  wit  and 
social  sympathy  to  the  feast ;  when  the  practical  pos 
sibilities  of  life  seemed  fairer,  and  life  and  character 
were  touched  ineffaceably  with  good  influence  —  cherish 


A  six  YEARS'  DAY  DREAM.  201 

a  pleasant  vision  which  no  fate  can  harm,  and  remem 
ber  with  ceaseless  gratitude  the  blithe  days  at  Brook 
Farm." 

To  this  brilliant  sketch  but  little  need  be  added  here. 
The  Pilgrim  House,  Eyrie,  Hive,  Cottage  ;  the  Nest 
where  Marianne  Ripley  brought  some  children  from  her 
school  in  Boston ;  finally  the  Phalanstery,  which  was 
consumed  by  fire  ere  completed,  are  names  that  may 
yet  appear  in  a  pretty  mythology.  George  Bradford, 
in  his  careful  account  of  the  community  ("Memorial 
History  of  Boston"),  says  that  there  were  always  a 
number  of  young  people  boarding  there  or  attending  the 
school,  and  that  a  prominent  feature  was  the  opportu 
nity  given  for  the  exercise  of  divers  gifts  and  faculties. 
"There  were  amusements  suited  to  the  different 
seasons — tableaux,  charades,  dances;  in  the  winter, 
skating  and  coasting,  for  which  the  knolls,  wide 
meadows,  and  river  afforded  favourable  opportunities  ; 
in  summer,  rural  fetes,  masquerades,  &c.,  in  the 
charming  localities,  rocks,  and  woods  around  the 
place." 

Hawthorne  used  to  attend  the  evening  gatherings  in 
the  hall  of  the  Hive  ;  though  admired,  he  was  shy  and 
apt  to  be  silent.  Some  of  the  Brook-Farmers  have  re 
gretted  that  in  his  romance  he  should  have  connected 
with  a  community,  which  well  deserved  the  name 
"  Blithedale,"  the  ghastly  tragedy  of  Zenobia's  death, 
which  occurred  elsewhere.  Hawthorne  himself  re 
gretted  that  so  many  closely  identified  Zenobia  with 
Margaret  Fuller,  and  that  the  death  of  his  heroine  by 
drowning  should  be  associated  with  the  tragic  end  of  a 
woman  whom  he  admired.  But  it  remains  the  fact 


202  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

that  "  The  Blithedale  Romance"  is  the  truest  monu 
ment  of  Brook  Farm,  and  all  the  pains  and  losses  it 
cost  them  might  well  seem  to  the  inmates  a  small  price 
to  pay  for  that  immortal  product  which  rose  out  of  the 
ashes  of  so  many  fair  hopes. 

The  most  energetic  person  in  founding  the  community 
was  George  Ripley,  a  scholar  and  theologian,  and  his 
accomplished  wife,  a  niece  of  the  poet  Dana.  J.  8. 
Dwight,  the  eminent  writer  on  music,  was  a  member, 
and  with  him  came  a  circle  that  secured  for  the  com 
munity  enjoyment  of  the  finest  classics  in  that  art. 
William  Henry  Channing  gave  inspiring  discourses 
which  have  hallowed  the  Brook  Farm  Sundays  in  many 
memories.  Charles  A.  Dana,  afterwards  Assistant 
Secretary  of  War  under  President  Lincoln,  now  editor 
of  the  New  York  "  Sun,"  added  much  to  the  social 
charm  of  the  place.  With  refined  and  cultured  fam 
ilies  such  as  the  Russells,  Hoxies,  the  brothers  Curtis, 
Elizabeth  Peabody,  Hawthorne,  Alcott,  and  Brisbane, 
Brook  Farm  had  no  reason  to  envy  Boston  its  social 
resources.  These  educated  and  refined  people,  with 
few  exceptions,  were  drawn  to  Brook  Farm  by  moral 
enthusiasm.  They  were  not  generally  impecunious, 
but  had  found  that  in  the  conventional  world  they  were 
spending  their  labour  for  that  which  did  not  satisfy, 
and  for  much  that  was  repulsive  to  their  new  ideal. 
But  the  general  world  had  such  a  hold  on  them  that 
they  could  not  go  far  from  Boston,  and  the  only  spot 
they  could  get  was  a  barren  one.  Though  a  small 
brook  named  their  farm,  they  did  not  have  any  of 
those  vigorous  streams  which  elsewhere  compensate 
New  Englanders  for  the  hardness  and  thinness  of  their 


A  six  YEARS'  DAY  DREAM.  203 

soil  with  water-power  for  manufactures.  They  had 
to  use  steam  for  their  mechanical  departments.  That 
so  many  people  were  able  to  live  at  Brook  Farm  even 
for  seven  years  is  really  a  good  fact  for  the  associative 
principle.  That  it  was  and  is  remembered  by  those 
who  dwelt  there  as  a  seven  years'  festivity,  cheaply 
purchased  by  the  funds  each  sank  in  it,  is  an  indication 
of  the  spiritual  exaltation  of  the  time.  This  it  was 
that  made  their  valley  of  Baca  a  well,  as  they  travelled 
through  its  dry  places,  and  their  wilderness  blossom  as 
a  rose.  But  they  were  reminded  by  Emerson  and 
Margaret  Fuller  that  they  were  still  but  pilgrims,  and 
their  tabernacles  but  tents  that  must  presently  be 
folded  for  the  journey  to  a  farther  land  of  promise. 

In  1840,  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  aged  thirty-six, 
found  himself  in  Salem  Custom-House*  "  murdering 
the  brightest  hours  of  the  day."  "Never  comes  any 
bird  of  paradise  into  that  dismal  region."  He  resolves 
to  be  free  —  to  be  young  again.  "  I  will  go  forth  and 
stand  in  a  summer  shower,  and  all  the  worldly  dust 
that  has  collected  on  me  shall  be  washed  away  at  once, 
and  my  heart  will  be  a  bank  of  fresh  flowers  for  the 
weary  to  rest  upon."  The  next  year  he  is  at  Brook 
Farm.  He  arrived  there  in  a  snowstorm.  "  Through 
faith  I  persist  in  believing  that  spring  and  summer  will 
come  in  due  season  ;  but  the  unregenerated  man  shivers 
within  me,  and  suggests  a  doubt  whether  I  may  not 
have  wandered  within  the  precincts  of  the  Arctic  circle." 
The  story  of  Hawthorne's  day-dream  may  be  outlined 
by  a  few  passages  taken  from  his  charming  "  Note- 
Books,"  between  April  13  and  September  3,  1841  : 

"  I  have  not  yet  taken  my  first  lesson  in  agriculture, 


204  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

except  that  I  went  to  see  our  cows  foddered  yesterday 
afternoon.  We  have  eight  of  our  own,  and  the  number 
is  now  increased  by  a  transcendental  heifer  belonging 
to  Miss  Margaret  Fuller." 

"  This  morning  I  have  done  wonders.  Before  break 
fast  I  went  out  to  the  barn  and  began  to  chop  hay  for 
the  cattle,  and  with  such  '  righteous  vehemence/  as  Mr. 
Kipley  says,  that  in  the  space  of  ten  minutes  I  broke 
the  machine." 

"Miss  Fuller's  cow  hooks  the  other  cows,  and  has 
made  herself  ruler  of  the  herd,  and  behaves  in  a  very 
tyrannical  manner." 

"  I  shall  make  an  excellent  husbandman.  I  feel  the 
original  Adam  reviving  within  me.'* 

"  I  have  milked  a  cow." 

"It  is  an  endless  surprise  to  me  how  much  work 
there  is  to  be  done  in  the  world,  but,  thank  God,  I  am 
able  to  do  my  share  of  it,  and  my  ability  increases 
daily." 

"  A  colony  of  wasps  was  discovered  in  my  chamber." 

"  It  is  my  opinion  that  a  man's  soul  may  be  buried 
and  perish  under  a  dung-heap  or  in  a  furrow  of  the 
field,  just  as  well  as  under  a  pile  of  money." 

"  Joyful  thought !  in  a  little  more  than  a  fortnight  I 
shall  be  free  of  my  bondage,  .  .  .  free  to  enjoy  Nature 
—  free  to  think  and  feel !  .  .  .  Even  my  Custom-House 
experience  was  not  such  a  thraldom  and  weariness  ; 
my  mind  and  heart  were  free.  Oh,  labour  is  the  curse 
of  the  world,  and  nobody  can  meddle  with  it  without 
becoming  proportionably  brutified.  Is  it  a  praise 
worthy  matter  that  I  have  spent  five  golden  months  in 
providing  food  for  cows  and  horses  ?  " 


A  six  YEARS'  DAY  DREAM.  205 

"  Other  persons  have  bought  large  estates  and  built 
splendid  mansions  with  such  little  books  as  I  mean  to 
write ;  so  that  perhaps  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  hope 
that  mine  may  enable  me  to  build  a  little  cottage,  or  at 
least  to  buy  or  hire  one." 

"  Really  I  should  judge  it  to  be  twenty  years  since 
I  left  Brook  Farm ;  and  I  take  this  to  be  one  proof 
that  my  life  there  was  an  unnatural  and  unsuitable, 
and  therefore  an  unreal  one.  It  already  looks  like  a 
dream  behind  me.  The  real  Me  was  never  an  asso 
ciate  of  the  community ;  there  has  been  a  spectral 
Appearance  there,  sounding  the  horn  at  daybreak,  and 
milking  the  cows,  and  hoeing  potatoes,  and  raking  hay, 
toiling  in  the  sun,  and  doing  me  the  honour  to  assume 
my  name.  But  this  spectre  was  not  myself." 

Hawthorne  returned  to  Brook  Farm  for  a  short  time, 
but  happily  long  enough  to  witness  and  describe  a 
characteristic  Brook  Farm  scene. 

"A  picnic  party  in  the  woods  yesterday,  in  honour 
of  little  Frank  Dana's  birthday,  he  being  six  years  old. 
I  strolled  out  with  Mr.  Bradford,  and  in  a  lonesome 
glen  we  met  the  apparition  of  an  Indian  chief,  dressed 
in  appropriate  costume  of  blanket,  feathers,  and  paint, 
and  armed  with  a  musket.  Almost  at  the  same  time 
a  young  gipsy  fortune-teller  came  from  among  the 
trees  and  proposed  to  tell  my  fortune.  While  she 
was  doing  this,  the  goddess  Diana  let  fly  an  arrow, 
and  hit  me  smartly  in  the  hand.  The  fortune-teller 
and  goddess  were  in  fine  contrast:  Diana  being  a 
blonde,  fair,  quiet,  with  a  moderate  composure  ;  and 
the  gipsy  (O.  G.),  a  bright,  vivacious  dark-haired, 
rich-complexioned  damsel, —  both  of  them  very  pretty, 


206  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

at  least  pretty  enough  to  make  fifteen  years  enchant 
ing.  Accompanied  by  these  denizens  of  the  wild  wood 
we  went  onward,  and  came  to  a  company  of  fantastic 
figures  arranged  in  a  ring  for  a  dance  or  a  game. 
There  was  a  Swiss  girl,  an  Indian  squaw,  a  negro  of 
the  Jim  Crow  order,  one  or  two  foresters,  and  several 
people  in  Christian  attire,  besides  children  of  all  ages. 
There  followed  childish  games,  in  which  the  grown 
people  took  part  with  mirth  enough,  while  I,  whose 
nature  it  is  to  be  a  mere  spectator  both  of  sport  and 
serious  business,  lay  under  the  trees  and  looked  on. 
Meanwhile,  Mr.  Emerson  and  Miss  Fuller,  who  ar 
rived  an  hour  or  two  before,  came  forth  into  the  little 
glade  where  we  assembled.  Here  followed  much  talk. 
The  ceremonies  of  the  day  concluded  with  a  cold  col 
lation  of  cakes  and  fruit.  All  was  pleasant  enough, — 
an  excellent  piece  of  work,  — '  would  'twere  done  ! ' 
It  has  left  a  fantastic  impression  on  my  memory,  this 
intermingling  of  wild  and  fabulous  characters  with  real 
and  homely  ones,  in  the  secluded  nook  of  the  woods. 
I  remember  them,  with  the  sunlight  breaking  through 
overshadowing  branches,  and  they  appearing  and  dis 
appearing  confusedly, — perhaps  starting  out  of  the 
earth,  as  if  the  every-day  laws  of  Nature  were  sus 
pended  for  this  particular  occasion.  There  were  the 
children,  too,  laughing  and  sporting  about,  as  if  they 
were  at  home  among  such  strange  shapes,  and  anon 
bursting  into  loud  uproar  of  lamentation  when  the  rude 
gambols  of  the  merry  archers  chanced  to  overturn 
them.  And  apart,  with  a  shrewd,  Yankee  observation 
of  the  scene,  stands  our  friend  Orange,  a  thick-set, 
sturdy  figure,  enjoying  the  fun  well  enough,  yet  rather 


A    SIX    YEARS'    DAY    DREAM.  207 

laughing  with  a  perception  of  its  nonsensicalness  than 
at  all  entering  into  the  spirit  of  the  thing." 

And  now  let  us  turn  to  the  memories  of  Margaret 
Fuller. 

"  All  Saturday  I  was  off  in  the  woods.  In  the 
evening  we  had  a  general  conversation,  opened  by  me, 
upon  education  in  its  largest  sense,  and  on  what  we 
can  do  for  ourselves  and  others.  I  took  my  usual 
ground :  —  The  aim  is  perfection,  patience  the  road. 
The  present  object  is  to  give  ourselves  and  others  a 
tolerable  chance.  Let  us  not  be  too  ambitions  as  to 
our  hopes  as  to  immediate  results.  Our  lives  should 
be  considered  as  a  tendency,  an  approximation  only. 
Parents  and  teachers  expect  to  do  too  much." 

"  Sunday.  —  A  glorious  day  ;  the  woods  full  of  per 
fume.  I  was  out  all  the  morning.  In  the  afternoon 
Mrs.  R.  and  I  had  a  talk.  I  said  my  position  would 

be  too  uncertain  here,  as  I  could  not  work.  said 

they  would  all  like  to  work  for  a  person  of  genius. 
'Yes,'  I  told  her,  'but  where  would  be  my  repose  when 
they  were  always  to  be  judging  whether  I  was  worth  it 
or  not  ? ' 

"  All  Monday  morning  in  the  woods  again.  After 
noon  out  with  the  drawing  party.  I  felt  the  evils  of 
the  want  of  conventional  refinement  in  the  impudence 
with  which  one  of  the  girls  treated  me.  She  has  since 
thought  of  it  with  regret,  I  notice. 

"Here  I  have  passed  a  very  pleasant  week.  The 
tone  of  society  is  much  sweeter  than  when  I  was  here 
a  year  ago.  There  is  a  prevailing  spirit  of  mutual  tol 
erance  and  gentleness,  with  great  sincerity.  There  is 
no  longer  a  passion  for  grotesque  feats  of  liberty ;  but 


208  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

a  disposition,  rather,  to  study  and  enjoy  the  liberty  of 
law.  The  great  development  of  mind  and  character 
observable  in  several  instances  persuades  me  that 
this  state  of  things  affords  a  fine  studio  for  the  soul- 
sculptor. 

"  My  hopes  might  lead  to  association  too — an  asso 
ciation,  if  not  of  efforts,  yet  of  destinies.  In  such  a 
one  I  live  with  several  already,  feeling  that  each  one, 
by  acting  out  his  own,  casts  light  upon  a  mutual  des 
tiny,  and  illustrates  the  thought  of  a  master-mind.  It 
is  a  constellation,  not  a  phalanx,  to  which  I  would 
belong." 


LESSONS   FOR   THE    DAY.  209 


XXIT. 

LESSONS  FOR  THE  DAY. 

I  HAVE  a  letter  by  Emerson,  found  among  the 
papers  of  a  friend  in  Cincinnati,  now  dead,  with  an 
inscription  showing  that  it  was  written  in  answer  to  an 
inquiry  concerning  his  religious  opinions.  It  is  dated 
at  Concord  in  the  October  of  1838,  and  contains  the 
following  statement  of  his  outlook  while  the  storm  was 
raging  over  his  Divinity  College  address,  delivered 
three  months  before  :  — 

' '  I  hasten  to  say  that  I  read  these  expressions  of  an 
earnest  character  —  of  your  faith,  of  your  hope  —  with 
extreme  interest ;  and  if  I  can  contribute  any  aid  by 
sympathy  or  suggestion  to  the  solution  of  those  great 
problems  that  occupy  you,  I  shall  be  very  glad.  But  I 
think  it  must  be  done  by  degrees.  I  am  not  sufficiently 
master  of  the  little  truth  I  see  to  know  how  to  state  it 
in  forms  so  general  as  shall  put  every  mind  in  posses 
sion  of  my  point  of  view.  We  generalise  and  rectify 
our  expressions  by  continual  efforts  from  day  to  day, 
from  month  to  month,  to  reconcile  our  own  light  with 
that  of  our  companions.  So  shall  two  inquirers  have 
the  best  mutual  action  on  each  other.  But  I  should 
never  attempt  a  direct  answer  to  such  questions  as 
yours.  I  have  no  language  that  could  shortly  present 


210  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

my  state  of  mind  in  regard  to  each  of  them  with  any 
fidelity  ;  for  my  state  of  mind  in  each  is  in  no  way  final 
and  detached,  but  tentative,  progressive,  and  strictly 
connected  with  the  whole  circle  of  my  thoughts.  It 
seems  to  me  that  to  understand  any  man's  thoughts 
respecting  the  Supreme  Being  we  need  an  insight  into 
the  general  habit  and  tendency  of  his  speculations, 
for  every  man's  idea  of  God  is  the  last  or  most 
comprehensive  generalisation  at  which  he  has  arrived. 
But  besides  the  extreme  difficulty  of  stating  our  re 
sults  on  such  questions  in  a  few  propositions,  I  think, 
my  dear  sir,  that  a  certain  religious  feeling  deters 
us  from  the  attempt.  I  do  not  gladly  utter  any  deep 
conviction  of  the  soul  in  any  company  where  I  think 
it  will  be  contested  —  no,  nor  unless  I  think  it  will 
be  welcome.  Truth  has  already  ceased  to  be  itself  if 
polemically  said ;  and  if  the  soul  would  utter  oracles, 
as  every  soul  should,  it  must  live  for  itself — keep  itself 
right-minded,  observe  with  such  awe  its  OWTII  law  as  to 
concern  itself  very  little  with  the  engrossing  topics  of 
the  hour,  unless  they  be  its  own.  I  believe  that  most 
of  the  speculations  and  difficulties  that  infest  us  we 
must  thank  ourselves  for  —  that  each  mind,  if  true  to 
itself,  will,  by  living  for  the  right  and  not  importing 
into  itself  the  doubts  of  other  men,  dissolve  all  diffi 
culties,  as  the  sun  at  midsummer  burns  up  the  clouds. 
"  Hence  I  think  the  aid  we  can  give  each  other  is 
only  incidental,  lateral,  and  sympathetic.  If  we  are 
true  and  benevolent,  we  reinforce  each  other  by  every 
act  and  word  ;  your  heroism  stimulates  mine,  and  your 
light  kindles  mine.  The  end  of  all  this  is,  that  I  thank 
you  heartily  for  the  confidence  of  your  letter,  and  beg 


LESSONS    FOR    THE    DAY.  211 

you  to  use  your  earliest  leisure  to  come  and  see  me. 
It  is  very  possible  that  I  shall  not  be  able  to  give  you 
one  definition  ;  but  I  will  shew  you  with  joy  what  I 
strive  after  and  what  I  worship,  as  far  as  I  can.  Mean 
time  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  hear  from  you  by  letter.  — 
Your  friend  and  servant,  R.  W.  EMERSON." 

"Yew,"  said  Confucius,  "permit  me  to  tell  you 
what  is  knowledge.  What  you  are  acquainted  with, 
consider  that  you  know  it ;  what  you  do  not  under 
stand,  consider  that  you  do  not  know  it :  this  is  knowl 
edge."  This  definition  is  in  startling  contrast  with  the 
tone  of  nearly  all  other  founders  of  religions  and  phi 
losophies.  The  student  speedily  discovers  that  the  most 
commonplace  attribute  of  this  class  is  omniscience. 
Long  before  charts  of  land  or  sea  were  made,  the 
invisible  heavens  and  hells  were  mapped  and  reported 
in  detail.  The  seven  or  seventy  hells,  the  nine  celestial 
spheres,  twenty-eight  heavens,  twenty  chiliocosms,  four 
dhyanas,  four  orders  of  being,  three  energies,  six  days 
of  creation,  elven  avatars,  three  dispensations,  two 
dispensations,  and  a  thousand  other  arrangements  of 
the  universe  into  sixes  and  sevens,  meet  us  at  every 
turn  in  the  cosmogonies  and  scriptures  which  still  com 
mand  the  faith  of  the  majority  of  mankind.  These 
exact  statements  concerning  things  beyond  the  scope 
of  human  faculties,  while  they  escaped  the  criticism 
of  the  ordinary  human  understanding  by  soaring  above 
the  objects  with  which  it  could  deal,  indulged  a  very 
general  weakness  of  the  human  mind,  and  there  is  little 
reason  to  wonder  that  the  every-day  rules  and  moral 
maxims  of  Confucius  were  overshadowed  by  the  clear 


212  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

and  positive  splendours  of  Buddhism.  The  scholar  of 
the  present  day  notes  this  speculative  precision  as  a 
sign  of  the  infancy  of  philosophy,  and  measures  the 
antiquity  of  a  religion  by  the  boldness  of  its  assump 
tions  of  particular  knowledge  in  the  realm  of  the  un 
knowable.  Nevertheless,  he  has  only  to  look  around 
him  to  perceive  how  large  a  part  of  mankind  is  still 
prone  to  follow  the  teachers  who  approximate  most 
nearly  the  attitude  of  omniscience.  Swedenborg  gos 
siping  with  the  angels ;  Comte  assigning  love  and 
thought  their  grooves  ;  Fourier  pigeonholing  the  uni 
verse  in  his  French  cabinet ;  mediums  interviewing 
departed  spirits  at  their  tea-tables,  and  fairly  slapping 
the  shades  of  heroes  and  prophets  on  the  back  with 
joyous  familiarity ;  the  popular  divines  bringing  all 
mysteries  down  to  a  rhetorical  zodiac  around  their 
pulpits :  these  are  the  recognised  builders  of  the  only 
new  sects  and  systems  of  which  our  age  can  boast. 
With  the  bones  of  theories  and  explanations  bleaching 
all  along  the  track  by  which  the  human  mind  has  jour 
neyed,  we  still  find  the  multitude  adoring  their  calves, 
and  steadily  demanding  for  their  leaders  those  who  can 
most  glibly  fable  of  the  ineffable. 

The  recognition  and  attention  paid  to  some  thinkers 
wrho  have  not  enclosed  the  heavens  and  the  earth  in  a 
nutshell  is  a  novel  and  significant  phenomenon.  There 
is,  indeed,  no  sign  of  decrease  in  the  numbers  of  the 
system-makers  and  system-mongers.  When  some  one 
spoke  of  the  distance  of  the  sky,  poor  William  Blake 
cried,  "It  is  false;  the  other  day  I  walked  down  a 
lane  and  touched  it  with  my  cane  !  "  It  is  easy  to  lis 
ten,  on  any  Sunday,  to  preachers  who  have  repeatedly 


LESSONS   FOR   THE    DAY.  213 

done  the  same  thing.  But  when  Edinburgh  called  for 
Carlyle,  and  Harvard  for  Emerson,  to  speak  to  them, 
there  was  a  suggestion  that  the  world  is  beginning  to 
suspect  that  the  sky  touched  with  such  facility  may  be 
some  theologian's  umbrella  and  not  the  dome  of  azure. 

With  more  reverence  than  the  builders  or  uphold 
ers  of  sj^stems  and  theories,  and  all  their  earnest 
ness,  Emerson  led  his  followers  to  ends  only  to  turn 
those  ends  into  means  ;  the  shining  walls  are  no  sooner 
reached  than  they  change  to  tinted  mist,  their  towers 
gleaming  now  far  ahead.  At  times,  indeed,  he  has 
seemed  to  rebuild  the  old  temples  and  rekindle  the 
flames  of  altars  that  have  grown  cold  ;  but  it  is  only  to 
touch  them  into  ruin  again,  to  shew  how  and  why  they 
have  perished,  and  why  those  that  succeed  them  must 
perish  ;  while  the  disciple  gradually  learns,  if  he  cannot 
define  it,  that  there  is  something  that  endures  through 
them  all ;  and  learns,  too,  that  all  the  piety  and  humil 
ity  of  those  who  knelt  at  those  altars  dwell  with  those 
who  respect  the  limits  of  human  knowledge  and  action, 
adhere  to  simple  truth  and  reality,  and,  amid  the 
talkers,  can  look  upon  the  heavens  with  a  silence  like 
their  own. 

There  is,  indeed,  an  unmistakable  tendency  of  this 
kind  in  the  mind  of  Emerson  shewn  by  his  successive 
works.  In  his  earlier  volumes  we  find  more  that  is 
dreamy  and  visionary  than  in  the  later.  Although 
there  was  in  the  earlier  essays  nothing  so  formal  as 
the  idealism  of  Berkeley  and  the  schoolmen,  and  noth 
ing  so  definite  as  the  Hegelian  philosophy  or  any  form 
of  Christianity,  there  was  in  them  a  sufficient  relation 
to  the  metaphysics  of  modern  Germany  and  to  the 


214  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

mystical  statements  of  religion,  to  draw  upon  his  views 
the  label  of  transcendentalism.  His  criticisms  of  so 
ciety,  too,  were  accompanied  by  prophecies  so  har 
monious,  in  some  respects,  with  the  theories  of  French 
socialism,  that  it  is  not  surprising  his  more  ardent  and 
literal  friends  should  have  endeavoured  to  embody  them 
in  communities  ;  while  the  fact  that  his  visions  never 
acquired  the  consistency  of  theories  is  shewn  in  his 
steady  refusal  to  commit  himself  to  any  such  practical 
schemes,  and  his  evident  lack  of  faith  in  them.  The 
New  England  pulpit  in  which  the  philosopher  began  his 
teachings  was  not  abandoned  per  saltum,  and  his  first 
essays  were  modified  from  those  sermons,  to  whose  rare 
charms  many  have  testified.  It  was  as  if,  in  the  deter 
mination  to  explore  all  things  for  himself,  he  began 
as  the  race  began,  with  the  adoration  of  sun  and 
star,  though  vaguely  and  without  ritual.  But  with 
increasing  reticence  concerning  incomprehensible  prob 
lems,  he  has  with  every  volume  aimed  less  to  realise 
the  ideal  than  to  idealise  the  real. 

Thus  far,  it  may  be  said,  the  American  thinker  has 
but  kept  step  with  the  culture  of  the  world,  passing 
from  other  worldly  dreams  to  European  realism,  from 
the  certainties  of  ignorance  to  the  scepticisms  of 
science.  But  there  is  in  his  works  somewhat  not 
characteristic  of  the  thought  of  modern  Europe,  even 
if  occasionally  traceable  in  it.  With  the  culture  of  the 
Old  World  he  has  none  of  its  intellectual  despair.  The 
hand  is  that  of  scepticism,  the  voice  is  that  of  faith. 
The  tottering  Jerichos  crumble,  but  the  blast  before 
which  they  have  fallen  winds  into  a  prelude  of  the  strain 
that  builds  the  hundred-gated  walls  in  their  place. 


LESSONS   FOR   THE   DAY.  215 

There  is  no  trace  of  cynicism  in  his  fine  humour,  no 
showing  of  the  teeth  in  his  searching  radicalism  — 
though  he  spare  not  to  touch  the  best,  —  but  always 
the  undertone  of  hope,  as  of  one  who  knows  that  the 
sunset  of  one  longitude  is  the  sunrise  of  another.  The 
old  religions  and  institutions  pass  away  because  they 
are  false  replies  to  the  question  that  is  deepest,  but  the 
power  of  that  questioning  spirit  to  set  aside  such  re 
plies  at  serious  earthly  cost,  is  the  ever-renewed  pledge 
of  the  universe  that  "  whatever  curiosity  the  order  of 
things  has  awakened, .the  order  of  things  can  satisfy." 
To  this  attitude  of  expectation  all  things  become  hope 
fully  significant ;  snowfiakes  and  blossoms  are  alike 
superlative  effects  of  the  sunshine,  and  in  vanishings 
from  us,  as  well  as  in  acquisitions,  the  advancing  ideals 
trace  their  steps.  Before  those  for  whom  alone  he 
writes — those  who  think  —  Emerson  holds  up  the 
great  aim  of  absolute  truth  ;  it  was  so  in  his  earliest,  it 
is  so  in  his  latest  works  ;  but  in  the  latter  there  is  recog 
nition  that  the  thinker's  business  is  for  the  present  with 
the  corner-stone  rather  than  the  coping-stone  of  his 
tower  of  vision.  The  scholar  is  to  gain  his  freedom, 
to  get  rid  of  his  gilded  gyves,  rather  than  to  try 
his  wings ;  he  is  to  demonstrate  his  liberty  rather 
than  crudely  press  it.  Here  are  rules  of  life  that  go 
to  the  very  generation  of  the  thinker,  and  estimate 
the  virginal  elements  of  which  he  is  born ;  his 
diet,  health,  habits,  physical  as  well  as  mental,  are 
anxiously  discussed ;  for  with  him  is  the  hope  of  the 
world.  He  is  to  correct  ancient  methods,  anil  sow  the 
grandest  formulas  for  seed.  He  will  sow  the  very  star* 
for  seed,  trusting  the  perfection  of  the  universe.  'While 


216  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

others  deprecate  or  invoke,  the  scholar  will  discover 
and  polish  lenses  of  a  higher  power,  and  transmit  more 
exact  notations,  assured  that  when  all  the  conditions 
have  been  fulfilled,  the  star-mist  shall  faintly  appear  to 
the  watchers  of  the  future,  and  in  the  end  gather  into 
the  golden  worlds. 

Emerson  was  not  a  man  to  throw  away  experience. 
"  He  has  clapped  copyright  on  the  world,"  he  has  said 
of  Plato.  ' '  This  is  the  ambition  of  individualism.  But 
the  mouthful  proves  too  large.  Boa  constrictor  has  good 
will  to  eat  it,  but  he  is  foiled.  He  falls  abroad  in  the 
attempt,  and  biting  gets  strangled :  the  bitten  world 
holds  the  biter  fast  by  his  own  teeth.  There  he  perishes  : 
uuconquered  Nature  lives  on  and  forgets  him.  So  it 
fares  with  all ;  so  must  it  fare  with  Plato."  The  New 
World  idealist  is  too  aged  to  be  similarly  strangled. 
He  does  not,  indeed,  dislike  occasional  empiricism  if  it 
puts  on  no  doctrinaire  airs.  He  will  have  absoluteness. 
The  abyss  between  Emerson  and  Christianity,  not  to  be 
spanned  by  any  metaphysical  casuistry,  is  that  he  turned 
its  every  tenet  into  an  empiricism,  and  its  historical 
claims  into  a  subject  for  speculation,  like  the  life  of 
Shakespeare  and  his  plays. 

This  idealistic,  devout,  aspiring  genius  was  the  same 
that  in  the  centuries  had  bent  its  searching  gaze  upon 
traditional  and  speculative  heavens.  Now,  for  the  first 
time,  it  is  turned  earthward ;  and,  for  the  first  time 
since  Socrates,  mankind  were  reminded  that  "  the  pure 
earth  is  situated  in  the  pure  heavens,"  and  that  "  there 
are,  indeed,  many  and  wonderful  places  in  the  earth, 
and  it  is  neither  of  such  a  kind  nor  of  such  a  magni 
tude  as  is  supposed  by  those  who  are  accustomed  to 


LESSONS    FOU   THE    DAY.  217 

speak  of  the  earth."  Such  was  the  earth  that  the  lowly 
should  inherit ! 

Not  in  any  vision  of  ancient  faith,  not  in  Augustine's 
dream  of  the  city  of  God,  will  be  found  anything  fairer 
than  Emerson's  picture  of  the  right  and  true  human 
home.  An  architect  has  said,  that  if  the  architecture 
of  the  Abbey  of  Thelema,  so  minutely  written  out  by 
Rabelais,  could  be  really  built,  it  would  be  the  ideally 
perfect  edifice.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  dwelling 
planned  by  Emerson  for  the  human  mind  and  heart, 
and  put  within  their  reach. 

Here  are  characteristic  sentences  from  an  early  lec 
ture,  printed  in  an  English  journal,  "The  Truth- 
Seeker"  (1850),  as  "Mosaics  on  Home  Life,"  which 
it  is  interesting  to  compare  with  the  corresponding 
thoughts  in  his  chapter  on  4 '  Domestic  Life  :  " 

"We  are  eager  to  make  ourselves  acquainted  with 
the  ancient  fossils,  foreign  manners  and  customs,  the 
distant  parts  of  the  earth,  the  depths  of  the  sea,  and 
the  stars ;  but  the  things  which  are  nearest  to  us,  of 
which  we  cannot  get  out  of  sight,  are  the  strangest  to 
us  of  all." 

"  Domestic  events  immediately  concern  us  ;  public 
events  may  or  may  not.  That  which  is  clone  and  suf 
fered  at  home  —  not  what  is  carried  on  or  left  undone 
in  the  State-house  —  must  be  the  history  of  the  times 
and  the  spirit  of  the  age  to  us." 

"Never  subscribe  at  another's  incitement  or  buy 
what  you  do  not  want.  We  must  not  make-believe  with 
our  money." 

"It  is  not  desirable  that  labour  should  be  avoided. 


218  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

It  is  the  birthright  and  privilege  of  all.  But  another 
age  may  divide  the  manual  labour  of  the  world  more 
equally.  The  true  acceptance  by  each  man  of  his  vo 
cation —  not  that  chosen  for  him  by  others  —  is  that 
which  alone  will  reform  the  age/' 

44  Animals  know  what  they  want ;  the  human  being 
without  his  mission  found  does  not." 

44  There  is  as  much  scope  for  the  exercise  of  the 
greatest  abilities,  as  much  breadth  of  aim  and  enlarge 
ment  of  heart  and  character  requisite  to  be  a  master 
of  living  well,  as  the  hero  or  statesman  require  to  be 
come  masters  of  -their  respective  arts ;  nay,  indeed, 
much  more." 

4  4  It  is  the  vice  of  our  housekeeping,  the  vice  of  our 
conversation,  the  vice  of  our  religion,  that  we  take  so 
little  account  of  what  really  is  of  the  most  conse 
quence,  and  do  not  hold  the  highest  things  sufficiently 
sacred." 

44  We  account  circumstance  everything,  the  man 
himself  nothing." 

"•  Every  man  is  furnished  with  a  model  which  he  in 
stinctively  applies  to  others,  and  does  not  find  it  to  fit 
any  one  ;  but  we  still  hold  fast  our  belief  in  a  better 
life,  a  happier  state  of  things  and  circumstances.  This 
affords  a  certain  test  that  we  are  not  what  we  are 
capable  of." 

44  Every  individual  nature  has  its  own  interior 
beauty.  There  is  no  human  expression  but  what 
has  its  intense  interest,  its  links  down  into  the  very 
depths  of  being.  In  each  we  may  see  the  foundation 
of  a  divine  building.  Every  face  and  every  figure  is 
suggestive.  The  secret  power  of  form,  transcending 


LESSONS   FOK    THE    DAY.  219 

anything  we  can  account  for  or  explain,  is  a  proof  that 
matter  is  assuredly  a  vehicle  of  a  higher  power  than 
its  own.  This  is  the  answer  to  the  sceptic  who  denies 
the  unseen  divinity." 

"  A  new  friend  entering  our  house  is  an  era  in  our 
true  history.  Our  friends  illustrate  the  course  of  our 
conduct.  It  is  the  progress  of  our  character  that 
draws  them  about  us.  Let  us  cherish  around  us  what 
ever  has  a  tendency  to  bring  the  character  into  finer 
life.  Beauty  has  a  power  transcending  all  philosophy, 
which,  if  sacredly  regarded,  would  assimilate  all  na 
tures  to  itself." 

"Every  statue  and  picture  was  public  in  ancient 
Greece.  They  considered  it  absurd  and  profane  to 
pretend  to  property  in  a  work  of  art,  it  being  the 
property  of  him  who  could  see  it.  Although  their 
theory  is  not  the  true  one,  we  are  yet  indebted  to  the 
Socialists  for  many  useful  hints." 

"  Our  towns  do  not  fulfil  the  only  object  for  which 
men  should  congregate  in  masses,  namely,  the  finding 
for  the  individual  the  means  of  highest  convenience 
and  art,  which  he  could  not  otherwise  do  for  himself. 
An  object  or  instrument  of  value  becomes  more  so  the 
more  it  is  accessible.  Every  man,  every  child,  wishes 
to  see  the  satellites  of  Jupiter  or  Saturn's  rings,  but 
he  cannot  afford  to  buy,  and  he  does  not  want  the 
incumbrance  of  a  good  telescope.  It  is  the  same  with 
chemical  and  electrical  apparatus  ;  with  books,  casts, 
pictures,  statues.  This  is  the  rationale  of  a  museum 
in  every  town,  because  every  citizen  could  contribute 
something  which  would  be  rendered  more  valuable 
than  by  each  man  possessing  it  himself.  Its  influence 


220  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

is  to  bring  us  more  together,  making  us  more  of 
neighbours,  elevating  our  views,  and  giving  us  united 
interests.  The  law  prevails  for  ever  and  ever,  and  is 
capable  of  exact  demonstration  that  a  part  can  never 
equal  the  whole." 

"  Why  should  not  the  same  spirit  prevail  always  as 
in  our  best  and  happiest  moments  ?  The  consecration 
of  the  Sunday  is  the  desecration  of  the  rest  of  the 
week ;  that  of  the  chapel  is  the  desecration  of  the 
house.  True  religion  will  be  found  in  the  bosom  of 
the  family  every  day  in  the  week,  and  at  any  time  if 
at  all ;  and  of  all  places,  home  will  constantly  be  the 
most  sacred." 

' '  There  is  nothing  more  profane  than  the  invasion 
of  trade  and  the  encroachments  of  our  modern  mechan 
ical  improvements  and  ultra-utilitarian  doctrines  upon 
the  privacy,  the  duties,  and  harmony  of  domestic  life. 
Can  the  labour  of  many  for  one  bring  anything  half  so 
good  as  the  labour  of  every  man  for  himself?  " 

' '  In  these  hints  and  sketches  only  the  edges  of  the 
subject  have  been  touched  upon.  It  is  one  not  for 
description  but  for  action.  If  we  set  about  reforming 
the  evils  of  our  social  couditon  one  by  one,  it  is  lopping 
the  branches  while  others  spring  up  from  the  root,  and 
we  get  disheartened  at  the  extent  and  uselessness  of 
our  labour.  We  must  go  to  the  source  of  the  matter. 
The  Gorgon  of  convention  and  fashion  must  be  slain 
by  some  master-mind  giving  birth  to  a  new  era,  when 
we  can  live  truly  without  shame." 

Emerson  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  prophet  of  Art 
also.  Several  years  before  Ruskin  had  spoken,  the 


LESSONS    FOR    THE    DAY.  221 

great  essay  on  Art  (first  series)  had  appeared  ;  and  it 
has  been  an  interesting  thing  to  me  to  find  that  the 
earliest  appreciation  of  Emerson's  new  poetic  idealism 
in  England  was  among  the  Preraphaelist  Brothers. 
His  new  view  of  art  grew  out  of  his  new  view  of 
nature  ;  if  great,  it  must  be  supremest  nature.  The 
statue  must  rise  by  creative  laws  akin  to  those  which 
formed  the  marble  in  its  quarry,  the  pigments  must 
pass  upon  the  canvas  by  methods  and  in  combinations 
as  perfect  as  those  which  have  grouped  and  tinted  the 
forms  they  are  to  represent,  or  there  can  be  no  true 
Art.  "  When  science  is  learned  in  love,  and  its  powers 
are  wielded  by  love,  they  will  appear  the  supplements 
and  continuations  of  the  material  creation."  This 
sentence  closes  Emerson's  first  series  of  essays.  It  is 
translatable  into  his  view  of  Art  also,  so  that  he  is  able 
to  say,  "Beauty  must  come  back  to  the  useful  arts,  and 
the  distinction  between  the  fine  and  the  useful  arts  be 
forgotten."  Thus  he  anticipated  the  new  utilitarian 
who  denies  that  a  structure  fulfils  the  laws  of  use  com 
pletely  unless  it  is  also  beautiful.  The  body  cannot 
find  true  repose  on  a 'sofa  or  chair  upon  which  the  eye 
cannot  rest  with  an  equal  satisfaction.  Therefore  works 
originally  contrived  with  an  eye  to  utility  alone  —  as 
the  crenellated  parapet  or  the  dormer-windows  on  a 
spire  —  survive  by  reason  of  their  decorative  beauty. 
We  are  led  to  a  principle  uniting  the  workman  employ 
ing  the  river  to  turn  his  wheel,  and  the  statesman  lean 
ing  upon  the  power  of  justice,  and  every  true  work  of 
Art,  which  is  such  in  the  proportion  that  it  accords 
with  the  method  of  nature,  where  beauty  is  always 
organic,  inhering  in  the  tissues  and  combined  around 


222  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

the  central  purpose  of  each  object.  Every  tinted 
feather  on  the  wing  of  bird  or  butterfly  was  called 
there  by  the  struggle  between  life  and  death,  and  the 
poem  or  picture,  though  it  may  appear  as  mere  dec 
oration,  is  rooted  in  the  same  hard  grey  strata  of 
Necessity.  Such  is  the  final  bearing  of  all  of  Emerson's 
essays  on  Art  and  Beauty.  Therefore,  "eccentricity" 
is  fatal  to  real  beauty,  which  can  come  only  of  the  laws 
of  Reason,  or  nature  in  its  highest  interpretation,  di 
vested  therefore  of  anything  whimsical.  He  once  said, 
a  man  must  be  for  a  time  stony-hearted  to  paint  a 
stone.  "  Herein  is  the  explanation  of  the  analogies 
which  exist  in  all  the  arts.  They  are  the  re-appearance 
of  one  mind,  working  in  many  materials  to  many  tem 
porary  ends.  Raphael  paints  wisdom,  Handel  sings  it, 
Phidias  carves  it,  Shakespeare  writes  it,  Wren  builds 
it,  Columbus  sails  it,  Luther  preaches  it,  Washington 
arms  it,  Watt  mechanises  it.  The  laws  of  each  art  are 
convertible  into  the  laws  of  every  other." 

When  Raphael  and  Watt  are  selected  as  the  terms 
of  the  list  of  representative  artists,  we  see  the  line  of 
definition  between  the  workers  for  Use  and  the  workers 
for  Beauty  vanishing  ;  we  are  prepared  for  the  affirm 
ation  that  all  arts  rest  upon  the  most  real  use,  and  that 
from  the  growth  and  flowering  of  the  institutions  act 
ually  around  us  must  come  arts  comparable  to  those 
which  our  painters  and  sculptors  can  now  only  copy 
from  the  past.  The  old  masters  were  masters  because 
they  were  not  servile  to  others  who  preceded  them. 
Emerson  appreciated  the  earnestness  of  Preraphaelism 
but  deplored  its  method.  They  seemed  like  the  Oxo 
nians  who  took  refuge  from  the  barrenness  of  Prot- 


LESSONS   FOR   THE    DAY.  223 

estantism  in  Romanism,  thereby  shifting  the  burthen 
only.  His  burden  was  against  all  creators,  whether 
scholars,  preachers,  politicians,  or  artists,  who  would 
borrow  the  cil  of  past  ages  or  adjourn  worthy  work  to 
the  future.  It  is  the  artist's  business  to  pierce  beneath 
the  trivialities  of  his  age  and  to  compensate  men  for 
them.  If  the  age  is  one  of  scepticism,  wTith  no  faith 
in  anything  but  its  economical  inventions,  all  the  more 
necessary  is  it  that  the  artist  shall  keep  the  watchfires 
of  the  nobler  life  bright  and  burning.  ' '  Another  age  ! " 
There  is  no  other  age.  Turner  found  London  fog  and 
Thames  barges,  nay,  Covent  Garden  cabbage-leaves, 
tender  and  pathetic.  There  was  spiritual  grandeur  in 
that  railway  train  he  painted,  flashing  on  through  rain 
and  wind.  If  our  artists  are  satisfied  to  be  retained 
as  painters- in -ordinary  to  the  wealthy,  who  can  see  no 
beauty  short  of  a  thousand  years  in  anything  save 
their  own  portraits  or  lawns,  we  cannot  perhaps  help 
it ;  but  we  protest  against  the  ascription  of  their  iu- 
competency  to  the  age.  There  are  flowerings  around  us 
as  well  as  buddings.  There  is  a  pass  at  Harper's  Ferry 
as  well  as  at  Thermopylae .  The  earth,  steadily  becoming 
transparent  to  the  eye  of  science,  discloses  forms  and 
realms  unpainted,  unsung,  grand  as  any  that  ever 
shone  from  legendary  spheres  for  Homer  or  Titian. 
Under  the  discoveries  of  philology  every  common  word 
suggests  a  poem  ;  our  mythological  science  recovers  the 
dead  deities,  and  reveals  their  shining  circle  seated  in 
the  human  mind ;  while  historic  criticism  strikes  the 
hour  at  which  the  masquerade  of  the  ages  comes  to  a 
close,  and  the  shows  of  things  fall  away  from  the  forms 
of  heroes  and  events.  And  with  this  new  heaven  and 


224  EMERSON    AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

new  earth  it  seems  to  be  among  the  least  pardonable 
defalcations  of  our  time  that  Art  should  imitate  the 
mere  outside  of  ancient  works ;  for  the  heart  of  them 
was  in  the  conviction  that  wrought  them,  and  that  con 
viction  can  exist  in  no  sane  mind  at  the  present  day. 
Walt  Whitman's  first  work  was  welcomed  by  Emerson, 
despite  its  faults,  because  it  showed  an  absolute  faith 
that  American  Leaves  of  Grass  have  for  clear  eyes  a 
sacreduess  like  that  of  the  Kusa  sward  which  the 
Brahmin  prepares  for  the  seat  of  his  gods.  Emerson 
shewed  us  that  with  the  telescope  and  the  microscope 
for  our  eyes,  and  the  vault  of  reason  and  the  vault  of 
heaven  fast  clearing  of  their  cobwebs,  there  is  no  rea 
son  why  we  should  consent  to  be  mere  preparers  of  the 
soil  for  future  arts,  or  accept  the  delusion  that  it  is  not 
the  eyes  of  Dante  and  Milton  that  we  lack,  but  the 
whorls  of  hell  and  the  drama  of  Paradise. 

Emerson  taught  a  new  secret  of  eloquence.  Carlyle, 
in  his  address  to  the  Edinburgh  students  four  years 
ago,  expressed  the  fear  that  "  the  finest  nations  of  the 
world  —  the  English  and  the  American  —  are  going  all 
away  into  wind  and  tongue.'*  One  cannot  read  fine 
anecdotes  of  the  effects  of  eloquence  without  feeling 
that  the  best  example  falls  short  of  the  sufferance  of 
the  great,  when,  as  the  sheep  before  its  shearers,  they 
are  dumb.  But  the  stump-orator  found  nothing  to  en 
courage  him  in  the  teachings  of  Emerson  ;  he  was  told 
that  his  habit  of  oratory  disqualifies  him  for  eloquence. 
When  Confucius  was  urged  to  speak  after  he  had  said 
he  would  rather  remain  silent,  he  asked,  "  Do  heaven 
and  earth  speak?"  Emerson's  reply  is,  that  unless 
heaven  and  earth  do  speak  there  can  be  no  eloquence. 


LESSONS   FOR   THE    DAY.  225 

There  are  times  when  the  right  word  carries  the  force 
of  a  cannon-ball.  It  must  be  the  word  without  which 
nothing  was  made.  If  one  will  obey  the  Pythagorean 
rule  to  be  silent,  unless  it  be  to  say  something  better 
than  silence,  his  speech  must  bear  us  back  to  the  silent 
laws  out  of  which  it  was  born.  "  There  is  for  every  man 
a  statement  possible  of  that  truth  which  he  is  most  un 
willing  to  receive — a  statement  possible,  so  broad  and 
so  pungent,  that  he  cannot  get  away  from  it,  but  must 
either  bend  to  it  or  die  of  it.  Else  there  would  be  no 
such  word  as  eloquence,  which  means  this." 

Only  for  this,  if  for  nothing  else,  Emerson  may  be 
called  the  most  helpful  teacher  of  his  generation  —  that 
he  recognised  the  habitat  of  the  human  mind.  Recog 
nising  the  outlooks  toward  the  unsolved  nebulae  of 
thought,  he  adheres  strictly  to  the  realms  of  actual 
knowledge  and  practical  life,  and  sows  its  sound  seed 
on  real  soil,  and  not  on  any  cloudland  of  theory.  Man 
is  dealt  with  as  a  being  living  in  lower  and  higher 
worlds  ;  but  the  higher  world  is  as  little  speculative  as 
the  lower,  and  is  subject  to  the  same  scientific  state 
ment.  The  moral  sentiment  is  dealt  with  as  a  fact,  the 
intellect  as  a  fact,  and  the  social  and  physical  environ 
ment  of  them  are  respected  as  related  to  and  blended 
with  these.  It  is  surely  a  significant  sign  to  the  young 
generation,  that  this  clear  and  pure  intellect,  after  ex 
ploring  every  epoch  of  thought,  should  finally  return 
home  to  itself  and  to  the  near  world  of  realities,  as 
containing  the  only  keys  of  knowledge  entrusted  to 
man.  At  the  same  time,  it  may  be  safely  affirmed  that 
no  volumes  produced  in  this  generation  contain  more 
that  is  profoundly  poetic  than  those  of  our  teacher. 


226  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

With  eye  ever  fixed  on  the  central  unity  of  things  —  as 
one  beholding  the  dawn  in  the  tinted  shell,  or  reading 
the  signs  which  galaxies  have  dropped  in  the  flowers  — 
this  seer  seems  hardly  able  to  hold  his  sentences  from 
breaking  out  into  song,  like  chapters  of  the  Koran.  If 
amid  the  confident  speculations  of  our  time  the  lower 
tone  of  this  thinker  is  surprising,  amid  their  pallor  the 
blood  and  passion  of  his  book  are  startling.  As  it 
used  to  be  said  by  the  rustics  that  all  the  ferns  have 
one  root,  we  may  say  of  these  manifold  thoughts  that 
every  one  draws  us  to  that  moral  sentiment  which  is 
with  their  author  the  ultimate  element.  "  Can  you  tell 
me,"  said  an  Englishman  to  his  neighbour  at  one  of 
Emerson's  lectures,  "what  connection  there  is  between 
that  last  sentence  and  the  one  that  went  before,  and 
what  connection  it  all  has  with  Plato?"  "None, 
my  friend  —  save  in  God ! "  But  when  this  is  said, 
it  remains  true  that  the  religious  sentiment  is  here 
purged  from  every  superstition,  even  the  most  conven 
tional,  and  the  poetry  is  never  empirical.  An  Ameri 
can  lecturer  complained  that  in  his  wanderings  from 
town  to  town  he  was  pretty  sure,  at  each  place  that  he 
stopped,  to  be  entertained  by  a  company  of  ladies  who 
drank  green  tea  and  asked  him  his  opinion  of  the  Abso 
lute.  If  Emerson  was  similarly  waylaid,  it  is  to  be  feared 
the  ladies  found  him  an  unmanageable  subject.  The 
young  student  will  not  find  himself  "crammed"  for 
the  rehearsal  of  life  by  Emerson's  teachings,  nor  any 
couch  prepared  for  those  who  wish  to  find  repose  on  a 
"system  of  the  universe."  With  Confucius,  he  "re 
spects  the  gods,  but  keeps  them  at  a  distance."  There 
is  no  line  in  all  his  books  that  can  encourage  any  one 


LESSONS   FOR   THE   DAY.  227 

to  waste  his  powers  in  the  effort  to  fence  in  the  illimit 
able  or  define  the  infinite,  while  every  sentence  shews 
that  by  patient  thought  and  honourable  living  real 
progress  is  made  and  true  knowledge  is  attained.  He 
who  still  believes  that  men  were  sent  into  this  world  to 
devote  their  attention  to  another,  or  to  the  benefit  and 
equanimity  of  the  Divine  Being,  will  find  no  confirma 
tion  here,  but  rather  a  recognition  of  Arthur  Clough's 
conclusion  — 

u  It  seems  His  newer  will 
We  should  not  think  at  all  of  Him,  but  turn, 
And  of  the  world  that  He  has  given  us  make 
What  best  we  may." 

It  is  now  wonderful  to  hear  the  anecdotes  that  shew 
how  puzzling  to  divines,  long  familiar  with  a  supernal 
universe,  were  the  simple  aspects  of  the  world  they 
lived  in,  to  which  Emerson  introduced  them.  After 
his  lecture  at  Midcllebury  College,  Vermont,  a  minister 
said,  in  the  closing  prayer,  "We  beseech  Thee,  O  Lord, 
to  deliver  us  from  ever  hearing  any  more  such  tran 
scendental  nonsense  as  we  have  just  listened  to  from  this 
sacred  desk."  Emerson's  only  remark  about  this  suppli 
cant  was  that  "  he  seemed  a  very  conscientious  plain- 
spoken  man."  At  Middletown,  Connecticut,  the  Meth 
odist  professors  and  divines  were  affected  by  his  lecture 
before  their  college  societies  as  if  he  had  administered 
laughing-gas.  Bishop  Janes  alone  felt  the  situation  to 
be  serious.  Afterwards,  when  some  one  quoted  lines 
from  Emerson,  where,  alluding  to  "  Taylor,  the  Shake 
speare  of  divines,"  he  says  — 

u  And  yet,  for  all  his  faith  could  see, 
1  would  not  the  good  bishop  be,"  — 


228  EMERSON    AT   HOME   AND    ABROAD. 

"  What,"  said  Bishop  Janes,  "  not  for  Jeremy  Taylor's 
hope  of  heaven  !  "  So  it  was  for  a  time.  But,  when 
Dean  Stanley  returned  from  America,  it  was  to  report 
("  Macmillan,"  June,  1879)  that  religion  had  there 
passed  through  an  evolution  from  Edwards  to  Emerson  ; 
and  that  "the  genial  atmosphere  which  Emerson  has 
done  so  much  to  promote  is  shared  by  all  the 
churches  equally.'* 


CONCORDIA.  229 


XXIIL 

CONCORDIA. 


"Herein!  herein! 
Gesellen  alle,  schliesst  den  Reihen, 
Dass  wir  die  Glocke  tauf  end  weihen  ! 
CONCORDIA  soil  ihr  Name  sein. 
Zur  Eintracht,  zu  herzinnigen  Vereine 
Versammle  sie  die  liebende  Gemeine  !  " 


its  name  shall  be  !  "  was  the  sound 
of  Schiller's  Bell  in  mj  ears  when  I  began  this 
book  about  the  Sage  of  Concord.  Its  name  could  not 
be  that,  for  it  would  promise  too  much,  but  none  would 
be  truer  for  a  full  story  of  Emerson  and  his  friends. 
The  prophecy  of  Weimar  was  fulfilled  when  from  a 
race  passed  through  furnaces,  heated  by  heavenly  and 
earthly  Star-chambers,  refined  and  tempered  by  love 
and  culture,  fashioned  in  mould  of  a  New  World,  this 
pure  genius  was  raised  aloft  in  its  tower  over  the 
broken  forms  that  had  held  it,  and  there,  in  tones 
melodious  with  all  sweetness  and  the  nobleness  of 
human  life,  summoned  all  souls  to  inward  and  outward 
harmony. 

"  The  town  of  Concord  is  one  of  the  oldest  towns  in 
this  country,  far  on  now  in  its  third  century.  The 
selectmen  have  once  in  every  five  years  perambulated 


230  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

the  boundaries,  and  yet,  in  this  very  year,  a  large 
quantity  of  land  has  been  discovered  and  added  to  the 
town  without  a  murmur  of  complaint  from  any  quarter. 
By  drainage  we  went  down  to  a  subsoil  we  did  not 
know,  and  have  found  that  there  is  a  Concord  under 
old  Concord,  which  we  are  now  getting  the  best  crops 
from." 

When  Emerson  said  this,  in  one  of  the  hundred  lec 
tures  he  gave  at  Concord,  some  of  his  neighbours 
reflected  that  a  much  greater  addition  to  their  wealth, 
in  a  strictly  economic  sense,  had  been  made  by  his 
residence  among  them.  He  was  the  selectman  who 
discovered  the  supersoil,  the  Concord  above  Concord, 
from  which  the  great  crops  came. 

The  effect  of  Emerson's  lectures  on  the  country  gen 
erally  was  indescribable.  It  was  found  that  his  voice 
had  been  heard  in  all  the  byways  and  hedges,  and 
swarms  of  a  mighty  fraternity,  popularly  classified  as 
"come-outers,"  swarmed  to  Concord,  each  to  get  his 
recipe  for  the  millenium  countersigned  by  the  new 
teacher.  Hawthorne,  who  had  gone  to  reside  in  "  The 
Old  Manse,"  has  left  us  a  graphic  description  of  the 
visitors  thus  attracted. 

"  There  were  circumstances  around  me  which  made 
it  difficult  to  view  the  world  precisely  as  it  exists  ;  for, 
severe  and  sober  as  was  the  Old  Manse,  it  was  neces 
sary  to  go  but  a  little  way  beyond  its  threshold  before 
meeting  with  stranger  moral  shapes  of  men  than  might 
have  been  encountered  elsewhere  in  a  circuit  of  a 
thousand  miles. 

"  These  hobgoblins  of  flesh  and  blood  were  attracted 
thither  by  the  wide-spreading  influence  of  a  great 


CONCORDIA. 


original  thinker,  who  had  his  earthly  abode  at  the 
opposite  extremity  of  our  village.  His  mind  acted 
upon  other  minds  of  a  certain  constitution  with  won 
derful  magnetism,  and  drew  many  men  upon  long  pil 
grimages  to  speak  with  him  face  to  face.  Young  vis 
ionaries —  to  whom  just  so  much  of  insight  had  been 
imparted  as  to  make  life  all  a  labyrinth  around  them  — 
came  to  seek  the  clue  that  should  guide  them  out  of  their 
self-involved  bewilderment.  Grey-headed  theorists, 
whose  systems,  at  first  air,  had  finally  imprisoned  them 
in  an  iron  frame-work,  travelled  painfully  to  his  door, 
not  to  ask  deliverance,  but  to  invite  the  free  spirit  into 
their  own  thraldom.  People  that  had  lighted  on  a  new 
thought,  or  a  thought  that  they  fancied  new,  came  to 
Emerson,  as  the  finder  of  a  glittering  gem  hastens  to 
a  lapidary  to  ascertain  its  quality  and  value.  Uncer 
tain,  troubled,  earnest  wanderers  through  the  midnight 
of  the  moral  world  beheld  his  intellectual  fire  as  a 
beacon  burning  on  a  hill-top,  and,  climbing  the  difficult 
ascent,  looked  forth  into  the  surrounding  obscurity 
more  hopefully  than  hitherto.  The  light  revealed  ob 
jects  unseen  before  —  mountains,  gleaming  lakes, 
glimpses  of  a  creation  among  the  chaos  —  but  also,  as 
was  unavoidable,  it  attracted  bats  and  owls,  and  the 
whole  host  of  night-birds,  which  flapped  their  dusky 
wings  against  the  gazer's  eyes,  and  sometimes  were 
mistaken  for  fowls  of  angelic  feather.  Such  delusions 
always  hover  nigh  whenever  a  beacon  fire  of  truth  is 
kindled. 

u  For  myself,  there  had  been  epochs  of  my  life  when 
I  too  might  have  asked  of  this  prophet  the  master- 
word  that  should  solve  me  the  riddle  of  the  universe. 


232  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

But  now,  being  happy,  I  felt  as  if  there  were  no  ques 
tion  to  be  put,  and  therefore  admired  Emerson  as  a 
poet  of  deep  beauty  and  austere  tenderness,  but  sought 
nothing  from  him  as  a  philosopher.  It  was  good,  nev 
ertheless,  to  meet  him  in  the  wood-paths,  or  sometimes 
in  our  avenue,  with  that  pure  intellectual  gleam  dif 
fused  about  his  presence  like  the  garment  of  a  shining 
one ;  and  he,  so  quiet,  so  simple,  so  without  preten 
sion,  encountering  each  man  alive  as  if  expecting  to 
receive  more  than  he  could  impart.  But  it  was  impos 
sible  to  dwell  in  his  vicinity  without  inhaling,  more  or 
less,  the  mountain  atmosphere  of  his  lofty  thought." 

More  of  these  were  emptied  at  Emerson's  door  from 
the  Hive  of  Brook  Farm,  and  from  other  socialistic 
tabernacles,  which  folded  their  tents  like  the  Arabs, 
but  did  not  silently  pass  away.  There  grew  up  a 
transcendental  cant  which  threatened  to  deluge  poor 
Concord,  and  the  number  of  insane  people  that  thronged 
the  philosopher's  door  must  have  severely  tried  the 
nerves  of  the  ladies  who  dwelt  there.  To  this  Mecca 
came  pilgrims  with  long  hair,  long  beard,  and  long  col 
lars  ;  very  many  with  long  ears :  those  who  believed 
that  man  was  to  reach  the  Golden  Year  by  abstinence 
from  meat,  committees  of  all  the  u  Isms,"  each  seeking 
to  get  the  new  candle  for  its  little  altar,  came  in  full 
chase  after  the  millenium,  which  Mrs.  Emerson  had 
much  reason  to  wish  would  make  haste  and  come.  Of 
course  there  was  abundance  of  material  for  the  humour 
ists.  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  expanded  the  new 
transcendental  dialect  to  ennoble  an  already  prominent 
feature  :  —  u  And  why  is  the  nose  set  in  the  front  of 
the  face,  stretching  outward  and  upward,  but  that  it 


CONCORDIA.  233 

may  attain,  as  it  were,  a  ibresmell  of  the  Infinite  ! " 
But  there  was  no  humourist  more  subtle  than  Emerson. 
He  did  not  laugh  like  Carlyle,  but  his  mirth  was  deeper, 
and  his  constitutional  faith  was  "  Sport  is  the  sign  of 
health."  At  a  small  festivity  in  our  house  at  Concord, 
at  which  he  was  present,  some  of  us  acted  as  a  charade 
the  word  "Transcendentalism."  The  pedants  and 
fanatics  of  an  earlier  period  would  have  been  scandal 
ised  could  they  have  seen  their  prophet  beaming  on 
our  travesty.  But  since  the  era  of  the  u  hobgoblins" 
there  had  been  a  change,  whose  true  history  would  be 
a  new  Timsetis,  telling  of  one  who,  like  a  god,  led 
things  from  disorder  to  order.  The  sediment  of  insani 
ties  which  the  new  ideas  had  stirred  up  gradually  sank 
to  its  natural  place.  There  is  an  allegorical  story  that 
once,  when  Theodore  Parker  had  just  parted  from 
Emerson  on  the  road  to  Boston  —  the  importance  of 
which  city  in  the  plan  of  the  universe  they  had  dis 
cussed —  a  crazy  "  Millerite"  encountered  Parker  and 
cried,  "  Sir,  do  you  not  know  that  to-night  the  world 
is  coming  to  an  end?"  Upon  which  Parker  replied, 
"My  good  man,  that  doesn't  concern  me:  I  live  in 
Boston."  The  same  fanatic  presently  announced  the 
end  of  the  world  to  Emerson,  who  replied,  "  I  am  glad 
of  it ;  man  will  get  along  better  without  it." 

Tender  as  Emerson  was  to  myths  and  miracles  which, 
with  a  sufficient  perspective,  were  visible  as  figures 
on  the  stage  of  antiquity,  he  gave  no  quarter  to  grow 
ing  superstitions.  He  was  attracted  by  Swedenborg, 
largely,  I  think,  because  the  spectral  rout  of  the  old 
world  gathered  in  him  to  one  neck  which  he  could 
neatly  cut,  preserving  the  head  for  craniological  study. 


234  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

One  who  was  with  him  at  a  meeting  of  the  society  for 
free  religious  discussion,  when  somebody  happened  to 
be  giving  his  views  in  favour  of  all  gross  delusions  of 
this  kind,  expressed  disgust  to  Emerson.  "  Yes,"  he 
said,  "there  are  some  persons  who  will  suck  up  the 
dirty  water  from  every  puddle  they  can  find."  On  one 
occasion  a  "spiritualist"  approached  him  with  what 
he  used  to  call  the  "rat-hole  revelation,"  and  Emer 
son  said,  "  To  me  the  universe  is  all  a  spiritual  mani 
festation."  All  those  delusions  ultimately  vanished 
from  his  presence  and  found  their  appropriate  caves. 

Emerson  was  also  very  careful  to  maintain  the  high 
and  refined  standard  in  regard  to  manners,  and,  against 
all  protests,  preserved  the  word  "gentleman,"  as  well 
as  the  reality  implied.  Though  never  ruffled,  he  was 
not  defenceless  before  boorish  intruders.  A  boisterous 
declaimer  against  "  the  conventionalities,"  who  kept  on 
his  hat  in  the  drawing-room  after  repeated  invitations 
to  lay  it  aside,  was  told,  '*  We  will  continue  this  con 
versation  in  the  garden,"  and  genially  taken  out  of 
doors  to  enter  them  no  more.  Yet  no  gentleman  could 
be  more  free  from  the  pretensions  often  associated  with 
that  title  ;  and  had  any  one  sought  to  defend  him  from 
the  best  that  Bottom  and  Snug  had  to  offer,  he  would 
have  said  with  the  Duke  Theseus  — 

' '  I  will  hear  that  play ; 
For  never  anything  can  be  amiss 
Where  simpleness  and  duty  offer  it." 

On  one  occasion  he  was  travelling  in  a  stage-coach 
with  a  friend,  and  a  third  entered,  a  very  crude  youth, 
who,  after  listening  to  the  scholarly  talk,  was  inclined 
to  join  in,  and  asked  Emerson,  "  What  do  you  think  of 


CONCORDIA.  235 

Romulus  ?  "  His  friend  proposed  in  French  that  they 
should  converse  in  that  language,  but  Emerson  said. 
"  No  ;  it  would  hurt  the  youth's  feelings." 

When  Emerson  fixed  his  abode  at  Concord,  it  was 
partly  because  it  had  been  the  home  of  his  ancestors, 
and  still  more  because  there  was  no  other  place  where 
he  could  hope  to  find  the  solitude  he  desired  so  near 
to  the  literary  advantages  of  Boston  and  Harvard 
University.  But  he  sought  no  morose  solitude  ;  he 
loved  the  society  of  kindred  minds  ;  he  was  by  nature 
given  to  hospitality.  For  a  long  time  he  was,  in  a 
spiritual  sense,  alone.  While  honouring  his  name, 
most  of  his  neighbours  were  shy  or  afraid  of  him.  He 
had  come  with  a  reputation  for  extreme  heresy,  and 
the  gossip  about  his  insanity  had  preceded  him.  He 
was  as  a  Prospero  in  this  far  island,  who  had  not  yet 
learned  the  might  that  lay  in  his  book  and  wand  to 
summon  around  him  ministers  more  real  than  the  aerial 
shapes  of  his  masque.  But  such  loneliness  is  a  con 
dition  of  the  exercise  of  the  highest  power.  There  is 
a  fine  passage  in  Browning's  "  Colombe's  Birthday," 
where  Valence,  speaking  for  the  Duchess  against  the 
claimant  of  her  throne,  speaks  also  this  truth  : 

u  Vol.  (advancing}.     The  lady  is  alone ! 

Berth.  Alone  and  thus?    So  weak  and  yet  so  bold ! 

Vol.  I  said  she  was  alone  — 

Berth.  —  And  weak,  I  said. 

Vol.  When  is  man  strong  until  he  feels  alone? 
It  was  some  lonely  strength  at  first,  be  sure, 
Created  organs  such  as  those  you  seek, 
By  which  to  give  its  varied  purpose  shape, 
And,  naming  the  selected  ministrants, 
Took  sword,  and  shield,  and  sceptre,  each  a  man." 


236  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

Emerson  created  his  own  world.  This  is  true  in  a 
sense  more  profound  than  can  be  fully  told.  It  is  not 
merely  that  beneath  his  spirit  light  was  divided  from 
darkness,  morning  from  evening,  dry  land  from  the 
waters,  in  that  formless  chaos  already  described ;  not- 
only  that  the  brood  of  ancient  Night  were  dismissed 
and  the  children  of  Light  drawn  around  him ;  but  that 
he  also  breathed  into  these  forms  the  breath  of  a  new 
life.  Goethe's  Prometheus  says  — 

"  Here  do  I  sit,  and  mould 
Men  after  mine  own  image." 

But  here  was  a  better  than  promethean  art,  which 
made  a  race  not  in  the  image  of  the  artist  —  a  varied 
race,  of  which  some  wrote  romances,  some  advanced 
sciences,  others  organised  higher  education,  others 
again  uplifted  the  standard  before  which  slavery  dis 
appeared,  and  better  laws  arose  for  woman  and  for  the 
home.  Emerson  never  "played  providence"  to  the 
minds  he  had  evoked.  He  allowed  no  imitation.  The 
inevitable  worship  came.  There  are  notable  instances 
in  which  his  voice,  manners,  and  the  very  expression 
of  his  face,  could  be  recognised  moving  about  Concord 
in  persons  unrelated  to  him  by  blood  ;  but  these  curi 
ous  unconscious  results  of  personal  affection,  wrought 
in  long  years  of  intimacy,  were  most  marked  in  those 
whose  individuality  was  especially  distinct  from  that  of 
Emerson.  Of  this  more  must  be  said  hereafter.  At 
present  we  may  observe  with  interest  the  Goldmaker 
(to  remember  Zschokke's  tale)  at  work  in  the  trans 
mutation  of  his  village.  One  of  the  pleasantest 
glimpses  of  the  earlier  society  there  has  been  sup- 


CONCORDIA.  237 

plied  by  George  William  Curtis  in  his  "Homes  of 
American  Authors."  Somewhere  about  the  year  1845 
this  now  eminent  author  went  to  live  at  Concord.  He 
had  graduated  at  Harvard  University,  but  he  and  his 
brother,  thinking  they  had  not  had  enough  of  the 
rough  side  of  life,  hired  themselves  as  farm  labourers 
near  Concord.  The  young  scholars  worked  well  for 
fair  wages,  and  reserved  leisure  to  enjoy  the  society  of 
the  men  who  had  attracted  them  there.  Here  the 
higher  graduation  of  George  Curtis  took  place,  and 
his  "  Memorabilia,"  given  to  the  world  from  time 
to  time,  are  always  charming.  Of  Emerson's  home 
he  says:  "It  is  always  morning  within  these  doors," 
and  gives  us  a  glimpse  into  the  Concord  of  his  time. 

' '  Toward  the  end  of  the  autumn  Emerson  suggested 
that  they  should  meet  every  Monday  evening  through 
the  winter  at  his  library.  I  went  the  first  Monday 
evening,  very  much  as  Ixion  may  have  gone  to  his  ban 
quet.  The  philosophers  sat  dignified  and  erect.  There 
was  a  constrained  but  very  amiable  silence,  which  had 
the  impertinence  of  a  tacit  inquiry,  seeming  to  ask, 
k  Who  will  now  proceed  to  say  the  finest  thing  that 
has  ever  been  said?'  It  was  quite  involuntary  and 
unavoidable,  for  the  members  lacked  that  fluent  social 
genius  without  which  a  club  is  impossible.  It  was  a 
congress  of  oracles  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  curious 
listeners  on  the  other.  I  vaguely  remember  that  the 
Orphic  Alcott  invaded  the  desert  of  silence  with  a 
solemn  saying,  to  which,  after  due  pause,  the  Hon. 
Member  for  Blackberry  Pastures  (Thoreau)  responded 
by  some  keen  and  graphic  observation,  while  the  Olym 
pian  host,  anxious  that  so  much  good  material  should 


238  EMERSON    AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

be  spun  into  something,  beamed  smiling  encouragement 
upon  all  parties.  .  .  .  Miles  Coverdale  (Nathaniel 
Hawthorne) ,  a  statue  of  Night  and  Silence,  sat,  a  little 
removed  under  a  portrait  of  Dante,  gazing  imperturba- 
bly  upon  the  group  ;  and  as  he  sat  in  the  shadow,  his 
dark  hair  and  eyes  and  suit  of  sable  made  him,  in  that 
society,  the  black  thread  of  mystery  which  he  weaves 
into  his  stories  ;  while  the  shifting  presence  of  the  Brook 
farmer  (Mr.  Pratt)  played  like  heat-lightning  round 
the  room.  .  .  .  Plato  (Emerson)  was  perpetually  put 
ting  apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver ;  for  such  was 
the  rich  ore  of  his  thought  and  the  deep  melody  of  his 
voice." 

The  "Note-Books"  of  Hawthorne  contain  delight 
ful  pictures  of  the  life  at  Concord.  One  may  be  given 
here. 

"  Entering  Sleepy  Hollow,  I  perceived  a  lady  reclin 
ing  near  the  path  which  bends  along  its  verge.  It  was 
Margaret  herself.  She  had  been  there  the  whole  after 
noon,  meditating  or  reading  ;  for  she  had  a  book  in  her 
hand,  with  some  strange  title,  which  I  did  not  under 
stand,  and  have  forgotten.  She  said  that  nobody  had 
broken  her  solitude,  and  was  just  giving  utterance  to  a 
theory  that  no  inhabitant  of  Concord  ever  visited  Sleepy 
Hollow,  when  we  saw  a  group  of  people  entering  the 
sacred  precincts.  Most  of  them  followed  a  path  which 
led  them  away  from  us  ;  but  an  old  man  passed  near  us, 
and  smiled  to  see  Margaret  reclining  on  the  ground  and 
me  sitting  by  her  side.  He  made  some  remark  about 
the  beauty  of  the  afternoon,  and  withdrew  himself  into 
the  shadow  of  the  wood.  There  we  talked  about  autumn, 
and  about  the  pleasures  of  being  lost  in  the  woods,  and 


CONCORDIA.  239 

about  the  crows  whose  voices  Margaret  had  heard,  and 
about  the  experiences  of  early  childhood,  whose  influ 
ence  remains  upon  the  character  when  the  recollection 
of  them  has  passed  away,  and  about  the  sight  of  moun 
tains  from  a  distance,  and  the  view  from  their  summits, 
and  about  other  matters  of  high  and  low  philosophy. 
In  the  midst  of  our  talk  we  heard  footsteps  above  us 
on  the  high  bank ;  and  while  the  person  was  still  hid 
den  among  the  trees  he  called  to  Margaret,  of  whom  he 
had  gotten  a  glimpse.  Then  he  emerged  from  the 
green  shade,  and  behold !  it  was  Mr.  Emerson.  He 
appeared  to  have  had  a  pleasant  time,  for  he  said  that 
there  were  Muses  in  the  woods  to-day,  and  whispers  to 
be  heard  in  the  breezes.  There  was  the  most  beautiful 
moonlight  that  ever  hallowed  this  earthly  world ;  and 
when  I  went  to  bathe  in  the  river,  which  was  as  calm 
as  death,  it  seemed  like  plunging  down  into  the  sky. 
But  I  had  rather  be  on  earth  than  in  the  seventh  heaven 
just  now." 

The  Concord  Lyceum,  in  which  lectures  were  given^ 
in  the  autumn  and  winter  months,  was  Emerson's  pul 
pit.     His  literary  friends  from  a  distance  were  always 
ready  to  come  and  lecture  there,  the  substantial  hono 
rarium  being  made  the  largest  in  the  country  by  the    / 
opportunity  afforded  of  meeting  Emerson,  who  gene 
rally  entertained  such  visitors.     Schools  of  high  char 
acter   arose  as   the   culture  and  wealth  of  the   place  / 
increased,   and   gradually   the   beautiful   Free   Public 
Library  was  built.     In  this  library   there  is   a  large 
alcove  filled   with   books   written   in   Concord   or   by 
authors  who  have  resided  there,  — Emerson,  Margaret 
Fuller,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  Thoreau, 


240  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

G.  TV.  Curtis,  Ellery  Charming,  Bronson  Alcott,  Louisa 
Alcott,  Elizabeth  Peahody,  Frank  B.  Sanborn,  Fred. 
M.  Holland,  George  P.  Lathrop,  Mrs.  Horace  Mann, 
Julian  Hawthorne,  Rev.  G.  TV.  Cooke,  Mr.  Harris, 
and  perhaps  others.  It  is  probable  that  no  other  vil 
lage  can  show  a  nobler  literary  monument  of  more 
various  labours.  It  is,  in  a  sense,  the  monument  of 
one  man. 

It  is  the  greatest  advantage  of  large  cities  that  each 
mind  can  find  its  circle,  though  it  would  be  eccentric 
elsewhere.  Emerson  was  as  patient  as  the  earth  of 
all  varieties  of  intellect  and  character.  He  w.as  scep 
tical  concerning  all  rumours  of  "  dangerous  opinions." 
George  Bradford  gave  me  a  sentence,  remembered 
from  a  lost  note,  in  which,  alluding  to  some  teacher 
of  so-called  "  wild  notions,"  Emerson  says,  "  A  meteor 
shaking  from  its  horrid  hair  all  sorts  of  evils  and  dis 
asters  may  by  and  by  take  its  place  in  the  clear  upper 
sky  and  blend  its  light  with  all  our  day." 

Margaret  Fuller  first  came  to  Concord  in  1836.  She 
came  to  visit  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Emerson.  It  was  a  year 
that  opened  with  a  bitter  trial.  She  had  been  looking 
forward  for  years  to  a  visit  to  Europe,  but  the  death 
of  her  father  brought  her  under  circumstances  which 
rendered  it  impossible.  She  was  in  her  twenty-fourth 
year,  but  possessed  a  culture  far  in  advance  of  her 
years ;  a  culture  that  was  European,  and  included  a 
knowledge  of  the  literature  and  art  as  well  as  the  lan 
guages  of  Europe.  ';  The  New  Year  opens  upon  me 
under  circumstances  inexpressibly  sad.  I  must  make 
the  last  great  sacrifice,  and,  apparently,  for  evil  to  me 
and  mine.  Life,  as  I  look  forward,  presents  a  scene 


CONCORDIA.  241 

of  struggle  and  privation  only."  So  opens  her  journal 
on  January  1,  1836.  But  in  July  she  was  guest  of  the 
man  who  could  be  and  was  far  more  to  her  than  Europe. 
She  had,  indeed,  listened  to  Emerson  for  some  years, 
but  she  did  not  seek  his  friendship  until  she  had  accu 
mulated  treasures  worthy  to  be  exchanged  for  hig  own. 

Emerson,  who  was  always  wont  to  scold  himself  for 
his  love  of  physical  beauty,  was  repelled  by  her  "  ex 
treme  plainness."  I  remember  well  that  the  eyes  of 
Margaret's  mother,  whom  I  well  knew,  filled  with  tears 
when  she  remembered  that  a  lack  of  personal  beauty 
had  been  ascribed  to  her  daughter  in  the  biography 
that  had  just  appeared.  "  I  do  not  understand  it," 
she  said,  "  for  Margaret  was  not  without  beauty." 
But  the  mention  of  it  was  necessary,  for  only  so  could 
be  shewn  the  splendour  that  was  unsheathed  in  the 
conversation  of  that  woman,  and  the  charm  which  held 
her  circle  of  friends  spell-bound.  And,  moreover,  only 
so  can  be  understood  the  morbid  tendencies  of  her 
nature,  of  which  she  was  healed  by  the  steadfast  sun 
shine  of  Emerson's  genius. 

Such  expressions  as  these  are  found  in  her  journals : 
"Of  a  disposition  that  requires  the  most  refined,  the 
most  exalted  tenderness,  without  charms  to  inspire  it. 
Poor  Mignon  !  fear  not  the  transition  through  death  ; 
no  penal  fires  can  have  in  store  worse  torments  than 
thou  art  familiar  with  already."  Such  secret  pain  led 
inevitably  in  one  direction  —  to  an  appeal  from  earth 
to  heaven,  from  the  present  to  the  future.  She  brought 
to  Concord,  along  with  her  riches  of  knowledge  and 
wit,  all  manner  of  notions  about  talismans,  charms, 
diumonic  influences,  presentiments.  Emerson  sepa- 


242  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

rated  the  bits  of  stained  glass  from  her  gems  with  the 
skill  of  a  true  lapidary  ;  and  then  the  superstition  that 
had  lurked  in  them  assumed  a  more  threatening  form. 
"  She  passed  into  certain  religious  states/'  says  Emer 
son,  "  which  did  not  impress  me  as  quite  healthy  or 
likely  to  be  permanent ;  and  I  said,  '  I  do  not  under 
stand  your  tone  ;  it  seems  exaggerated.  You  are  one 
who  can  afford  to  hear  and  speak  the  truth.  Let  us 
hold  hard  to  the  common-sense,  and  let  us  speak  in  the 
positive  degree.' '  She  wrote  some  bitter  complaints 
to  this  calm  physician,  and  a  plaintive  fable,  but  the 
worshipper  of  health  was  tenderly  inflexible.  And 
finally,  as  Margaret  had  found  that  the  Europe  so 
bitterly  lamented  lay  only  twenty  miles  out  from  Bos 
ton,  she  discovered  that  the  heavenly  friend  she  had 
longed  for  and  the  new  Jerusalem  were  equally  near. 
It  was  after  she  had  listened  deep  and  long  to  the  notes 
of  "  Concordia  "  that  she  wrote  the  following  :  — 

* '  The  stars  tell  all  their  secrets  to  the  flowers,  and 
if  we  only  knew  how  to  look  around  us,  we  should  not 
need  to  look  above.  But  man  is  a  plant  of  slow 
growth,  and  great  heat  is  required  to  bring  out  his 
leaves.  He  must  be  promised  a  boundless  futurity  to 
induce  him  to  use  aright  the  present  hour.  In  youth, 
fixing  his  eyes  on  those  distant  worlds  of  light,  he 
promises  himself  to  attain  them,  and  there  find  the 
answer  to  all  his  wishes.  His  eye  grows  keener  as  he 
gazes,  a  voice  from  the  earth  calls  it  downward,  and 
he  finds  all  at  his  feet." 

On  my  second  walk  with  Emerson  he  took  me  to  a 
seat  in  the  woods,  which  in  summer  days  had  been  a 
sort  of  try  sting-place  for  the  literary  lotus-eaters,  and 


CONCO^IA.  243 

as  he  talked  of  Margaret  —  so  gently,  and  with  a  re 
serve  as  if  she  were  still  living  —  I  heard  the  voice  that 
had  called  her  to  the  stars  at  her  feet.  From  what  he 
told  me,  I  knew  that  none  could  ever  get  from  her 
works  or  from  the  reports  of  her  friends  the  real  great 
ness  of  Margaret  Fuller,  and  felt  a  personal  grief  that 
I  had  not  known  her. 

Among  Margaret  Fuller's  friends,  in  her  last  years, 
were  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Browning.  This  was  after  she  had 
married  Count  Ossoli.  The  marriage  had  been  private, 
and  some  of  her  friends  in  Italy  suggested  that  she 
should  make  public  explanations  of  her  sufficient 
reasons  for  that  course  ;  but  she  refused,  saying  that 
"  no  one  for  whose  opinion  she  cared  would  be  likely 
to  believe  that  she  had  done  anything  wrong  in  such  a 
matter."  It  was  with  the  Brownings  that  she,  with 
her  husband  and  child,  spent  the  last  evening  she  ever 
passed  on  land.  As  she  was  starting  for  the  ship,  Mrs. 
Browning  pressed  upon  her  finger  a  ring  with  a  car 
buncle  in  it,  quite  unaware  that  Margaret,  in  her 
superstitious  days,  had  chosen  the  carbuncle  as  her 
stone,  going  so  for  as  to  put  one  on  when  writing  to  cer 
tain  friends.  Later,  as  Rebert  Browning  informed  me, 
they  received  from  her  a  letter  wrritten  —  or  scratched, 
rather  —  at  Gibraltar,  telling  them  of  the  ravages  of 
the  small-pox  which  had  deprived  them  of  a  captain, 
and  of  the  rigours  by  which  they  were  forbidden  to 
land,  and  compelled  to  go  on  to  America  with  disease 
lurking  in  the  ship  and  only  the  mate  for  captain. 
This  was  her  last  letter.  I  need  not  record  the  tragic 
end  of  this  strange  and  heroic  life,  nor  the  sorrow  of 
her  friends  and  relatives,  who  received  her  and  the 


244  EMERSON   AT   H(pIE    AND   ABROAD. 

husband  and  child  only  as  the  waves  dashed  them  to 
the  shore,  within  hailing  distance  of  which  they  per 
ished. 

The  story  has  been  told  with  all  his  eloquence  by 
William  Henry  Channing.  This  eminent  preacher,  so 
well  known  in  England,  was,  in  a  sense,  chaplain  of 
the  socialistic  organisations  in  America.  He  possessed 
—  what  was  rare  among  Unitarian  preachers  —  a  power 
of  eloquent  extemporaneous  speech.  There  was  a  tone 
of  prophetic  authenticity  in  his  voice,  which,  with  his 
scholarly  enthusiasm,  made  him  fitter  for  the  new  move 
ment  than  his  more  famous  uncle  could  have  been. 
After  the  failure  of  the  socialistic  experiments,  William 
Henry  Channing  was  known  as  an  earnest  champion 
of  every  human  cause.  His  spiritual  home  was  Con 
cord,  where  he  was  often  seen  and  was  always  wel 
comed  by  the  Emersons.  While  their  children  were 
yet  very  young,  as  Emerson  told  me,  his  wife  wished 
to  have  their  children  christened  ;  he  had  objected,  but 
said  he  would  consent  if  she  could  find  a  minister  "as 
pure  as  the  children."  When  Channing  came  to  Con 
cord,  he  agreed  with  his  wife  that  the  right  man  had 
been  found,  and  the  children  were  accordingly  chris 
tened. 

Among  those  who  went  to  reside  at  Concord  (1841) 
were  also  P^llery  Channing,  a  cousin  of  William  Henry, 
and  his  wife,  a  sister  of  Margaret  Fuller.  This  writer 
of  what  is  "very  near  poetry,"  as  Emerson  described 
him,  still  resides  there.  "  Ellery  Channing  is  excellent 
company,  and  we  walk  in  all  directions,"  wrote  Emer 
son  to  Thoreau  in  1843  ;  and,  when  in  England  in 
1848,  Emerson  read  to  a  circle  in  Manchester  some 


COXCORDIA.  245 

pieces  from  this  Concord  poet ;  among  them,  no  doubt, 
"  The  Poet's  Hope,"  whose  last  line  has  taken  its  place 
as  a  familiar  quotation  — 

u  If  my  bark  sinks,  ?tis  to  another  sea." 

Ellery  Charming,  who  still  resides  in  Concord,  was 
an  intimate  friend  of  Thoreau,  whose  life  he  has  told 
in  prose  and  celebrated  in  poetry. 

A.  Bronson  Alcott  came  with  his  wife  and  family  to 
live  at  Concord  in  1840,  and  there  he  still  resides,  a 
happy  and  hearty  octogenarian,  with  his  daughter 
Louisa,  whose  tales  are  the  delight  of  so  many  house 
holds.  In  early  life  Alcott  had  been  a  pedlar,  —  one 
picturesque  enough  to  have  been  a  model  for  Words 
worth,  —  and  when  the  transcendental  movement  be 
gan,  he  became  a  peripatetic  philosopher,  carrying 
about  spiritual  "  notions  "  instead  of  those  once  sup 
plied  from  his  native  Connecticut. 

In  1834  Alcott  opened  a  transcendental  school  in 
Boston,  whose  "Records,''  as  preserved  by  Elizabeth 
Peabody,  deserve  to  be  studied  by  every  parent  and 
teacher.  He  had  taken  to  heart  rather  literally  Words 
worth's  faith  that  "Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  in 
fancy,"  and  believed  that  from  the  commonest  children, 
if  suitably  addressed,  secrets  might  be  gained  "of 
that  immortal  sea  that  brought  us  hither."  His  school 
room  was  ideal,  with  busts  of  Socrates,  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  and  Scott,  the  image  of  Silence  with  uplifted 
finger,  a  bookcase  surmounted  with  the  bust  of  Plato, 
and  the  figure  of  Christ  above  the  head  of  the  blond, 
dignified  teacher.  As  to  the  value  of  the  replies  given 
by  the  pupils  to  questions  on  high  themes,  as  they  may  be 


246  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

now  read,  there  may  be  some  doubt ;  but  there  is,  in  my 
own  mind,  no  doubt  of  the  importance  of  some  features 
in  Alcott's  method.  For  instance,  he  opened  his  school 
with  an  instruction  in  behaviour  and  manners.  These 
children,  of  ages  ranging  from  four  to  fourteen,  were 
many  of  them  rude,  and  from  rude  surroundings.  It 
is  one  of  the  survivals  of  the  notion  of  innate  depravity 
that,  even  in  this  age  of  popular  education,  the  misbe 
haviour  of  children  is  ascribed  to  moral  causes,  to  be 
met  by  punishment.  A  child  just  learning  to  read  is 
expected  to  act  up  to  Herbert  Spencer's  "Data  of 
Ethics,"  or  be  flogged !  A  child  is  expected  to  come 
from  among  roughs  with  an  instinctive  knowledge  of 
how  he  must  behave  in  school,  or  to  other  children,  to 
the  aged,  to  ladies  !  It  is  doubtful  whether  in  all  the 
schools  of  the  world  any  lesson  is  taught  in  politeness, 
kindness,  gentleness.  In  Alcott's  school,  this  lesson, 
with  which  the  day  began,  was  so  interesting  to  the 
children,  that  they  stood  waiting  at  the  door  for  it  to 
open,  lest  they  should  miss  a  word. 

Another  remarkable  thing  in  this  unique  school  was 
the  mode  of  punishment.  The  teacher  having  found  by 
experience  that  the  rod  was  ineffectual  for  discipline, 
announced  one  day  that  thereafter  it  should  fall  only 
on  —  himself!  If  any  pupil  offended,  that  pupil  must 
inflict  on  the  master  the  blows  merited  by  the  offence. 
After  this  announcement,  there  was  more  complete 
silence  and  obedience  than  had  been  known  before  ; 
but  at  length  one  or  two  cases  occurred  where  boys 
were  compelled  to  strike  the  master's  hand  with  a 
ferule.  They  were  boys  to  whom  punishments  had 
been  of  little  consequence,  but  they  found  this,  as  one 


COXCORDIA.  247 

of  them  said,  "the  most  complete  punishment  a  master 
ever  invented ;  "  they  pleaded  with  tears  and  cries  to 
be  spared  the  disgrace  of  striking  their  mild  and  good 
teacher,  but  he  was  inexorable.  The  plan  was  effectual, 
and  the  ferule  appeared  no  more.  In  some  respects, 
this  school  was  an  improvement  on  one  which  might 
have  suggested  it,  —  that  of  Jean  Paul  Richter  at 
Schwarzenbach,  described  in  his  "  Bonmot  Anthology." 
When  Emerson  and  Carlyle  were  returning  from  a 
visit  to  Stonehenge,  the}7  were  entertained  by  Sir  Arthur 
Helps  at  Bishops  Waltham,  with  other  gentlemen,  and 
to  these  "Friends  in  Council"  Emerson  told  an  anecdote 
about  Alcott,  which  I  am  sorry  I  did  not  ask  him  to 
repeat  literally,  for  the  version  I  have  heard  may  con 
tain  mythical  elements.  Alcott  seemed  unable  to  pro 
duce  anything  for  which  the  great  world  was  willing  to 
trade,  and  the  family  was  reduced  to  want.  On  one 
occasion,  however,  he  became  the  owner  of  a  twenty- 
dollar  gold  piece,  which  caused  joy  in  his  household. 
On  the  same  day  a  traveller  in  distress  knocked  at  his 
door,  and,  telling  a  piteous  story,  besought  a  loan  of 
five  dollars  to  enable  him  to  reach  home.  Alcott  told 
him  he  had  not  a  five  piece,  but  could  lend  him  a 
twenty.  The  alternative  was  accepted  with  a  satis 
faction  not  shared  by  Mrs.  Alcott  when  she  presently 
returned  from  a  walk.  The  papers  next  day  contained 
a  description  of  the  rogue  and  how  he  had  swindled 
others.  Alcott  was  in  some  domestic  disgrace  until  a 
letter  arrived  containing  the  money,  the  swindler  de 
claring  that  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  rob  a 
man  so  simple-hearted  as  to  give  him  four  times  the 
amount  he  asked  for.  Alcott  alone  recovered  his 


248  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

money.  This,  or  something  like  it,  was  the  story 
Emerson  told  the  company.  Carlyle  sat  silent,  and 
when  dinner  was  announced  refused  to  precede  Emer 
son —  "he  was  altogether  too  wicked."  Alcott  for 
many  years  went  about  the  country  presiding  at  ' '  Con 
versations  "  on  philosophical  subjects.  Of  course  the 
humourist  and  the  fabulist  have  had  their  stories  to 
tell  about  him.  To  his  announcement  of  a  "conver 
sation"  was  added,  "Ladies  invited,  without  distinction 
of  sex."  On  one  occasion,  it  was  said,  when  the  phi 
losopher  had  divided  the  entity  Man  into  the  Knower, 
the  Thinker,  the  Actor,  a  pious  lady  asked  whether 
this  Knower  was  the  same  that  was  saved  in  the  Ark. 
A  Harvard  student  was  reported  to  have  asked  the  phi 
losopher's  opinion  "of  the  late  theory  of  Verdantius 
Grim,  that  the  moon  is  a  mass  of  sweitzerocaseous 
matter  congealed  from  the  uberous  glands  of  the  lacteal 
nebula."  These  inventions  were  suggested  by  the  fact 
that  Alcott  remained  in  a  Platonic  labyrinth,  where  he 
was  left  by  the  advance  of  science.  He  had  no  rela 
tion  to  the  scientific  age.  Emerson  used  to  say  he 
needed  a  reporter,  but  he  also  needed  an  interpreter. 
Nevertheless  some  of  his  oracular  paragraphs,  printed 
in  the  "Dial"  as  "Orphic  Sayings,"  are  fine;  and 
unquestionably  a  good  deal  of  the  intellectual  activity 
of  America  must  be  ascribed  to  this  last  of  the  Neo- 
Platonists.  Emerson  always  regarded  Alcott  as  a 
kind  of  transcendental  institution,  a  landmark  on  his 
own  path,  long  left  but  affectionately  remembered, 
and  when  he  was  near  to  death  asked  if  it  was  well 
with  him.  "You  have  a  strong  hold  on  life  and  will 
keep  it,"  he  said. 


CONCORDIA.  249 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  instances  of  the  effect 
of  the  new  inspiration  was  represented  by  one  who 
never  resided  at  Concord,  but  was  well  known  there, 
Jones  Very.  This  man  was  a  fulfilment  of  Emerson's 
prophecy  that  what  was  sometime  ecstasy  should  be 
come  daily  bread.  He  moved  in  a  continual  exaltation, 
and  there  came  from  him  beautiful  sonnets  and  hymns. 
Some  of  these  are  now  sung  by  liberal  congregations 
throughout  the  United  States,  and  they  are  not  un 
known  in  England.  When  Brook  Farm  had  broken 
up,  and  the  glowing  dawn  of  transcendentalism  had 
faded  into  the  light  of  common  day,  Jones  Very 
waked  as  from  a  trance  and  became  a  prosaic  farmer. 
He  never  published  another  line.  He  was  changed 
even  in  personal  appearance,  so  that  his  old  friends 
hardly  knew  him  on  the  street. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  either  Alcott  or  Jones 
Very  were  representative  of  the  influence  of  Emerson, 
however  closely  related  to  an  early  phase  of  it.  Con 
cord  held  fit  homes  for  such,  but  it  appropriated  the 
spirit  of  its  Sage  in  all  practical  ways.  Judge  Rock- 
wood  Hoar  was  none  the  less  indebted  to  his  great 
friend  for  aid  in  his  growth  to  be  a  pre-eminent  jurist 
and  statesman  because  his  argumentative  and  logical 
power  was  so  remote  from  the  genius  of  Emerson. 
The  father  of  Judge  Hoar,  Samuel  Hoar,  from  being  a 
distinguished  lawyer  and  statesman,  had  become,  when 
I  first  remember  Concord,  a  saint  of  the  village. 
"  He  never  comes  down  on  earth  among  us,"  said 
Emerson  one  day  as  we  passed  the  calm  face  of  the 
tall  aged  man,  around  whom  all  the  spiritual  agitations 
had  gone  on  for  years  without  interrupting  his  per- 


250  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

petual  prayer.  The  Rev.  George  Simmons  was  there 
also,  with  his  spiritual  face,  absorbed  in  critical  studies 
of  the  age  of  St.  John's  Gospel,  while  yet  able,  in  cer 
tain  moods,  to  recognise  the  Beloved  passing  his  door. 

At  the  Old  Manse  lived  Sarah  Ripley,  of  whom  much 
has  already  been  said,  surrounded  by  her  lovely 
daughters.  The  story  of  her  life  has  been  told  by  that 
lady  of  Concord  who  could  best  tell  it — the  late  Eliza 
beth  Hoar,  whose  countenance  and  conversation  were 
to  me  always  as  if  she  had  come  from  communion  with 
angels.  Mrs.  Ripley  was  born  in  1793,  and  made 
speedy  and  prodigious  advances  in  the  study  of 
languages  and  of  science.  In  her  seventeenth  year 
she  is  an  earnest  student  of  English  philosophy,  and 
knows  by  heart  Darwin's  "  Botanic  Garden."  She 
already  has  the  Darwinian  instinct,  and  writes,  "  Even 
the  humble  dandelion  exhibits  an  order  and  regularity 
of  parts  admirable  as  the  harmony  of  spheres."  She 
already  knows  how  to  unmask  the  passing  day,  and 
writes  in  her  journal,  "  Some  sweet  ingredient  is  each 
day  mingled  in  my  cup."  When  she  is  twenty-one  we 
find  her  corresponding  with  her  little  friend  of  eleven, 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  and  in  one  letter  says  to  him, 
"  I  suppose  you  have  Euryalus  among  your  com 
panions  ;  or  don't  little  boys  love  each  other  as  well  as 
they  did  in  Virgil's  time  ?  How  beautifully  he  describes 
the  morning  ! " 

A  beautiful  life  she  lived,  and  when  the  new  age 
came  she  took  it  into  her  heart,  and  invested  it  with 
all  loveliness  of  womanly  character  and  domestic  vir 
tues,  which  were  as  potent  to  win  homage  as  the  finest 
intellectual  statements.  She  was  the  wife  of  a  Unita- 


CONCORDIA.  251 

rian  preacher,  a  relative  of  Emerson's,  but  she  knew 
how  unsatisfactory  was  that  phase  of  faith.  Of  a 
preacher  who  filled  her  husband's  pulpit  she  wrote  to  a 
friend,  "How  the  bucket  of  the  gentleman  danced  up 
and  down  on  the  surface  of  that  deep  well  of  spiritual 
life,  from  which  the  saints  in  all  ages  have  drawn  living 
water  !  But  he  is  a  pleasant  fellow."  And  what  con 
versations  were  those  between  Sarah  Ripley  and  Emer 
son  !  "I  was  walking  the  other  morning  with  Waldo 
Emerson  in  Concord,  and  I  told  him  I  thought  the 
soul's  serenity  was  at  best  nothing  more  than  resigna 
tion  to  what  could  not  be  helped.  He  answered,  '  Oh, 
no  —  not  resignation ;  aspiration  is  the  soul's  true 
estate  !  What  have  we  knees  for  ?  what  have  we  hands 
for?  Peace  is  victory.'"  Emerson  having  promised 
her  to  bring  "a  lecture  which  has  legs,"  she  writes, 
"But  I  fear,  after  all,  wings  will  be  sprouting  at  the 
heels." 

The  Rev.  Samuel  Ripley  died  while  Emerson  was 
lecturing  in  England,  and  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Ripley 
(from  Manchester,  26th  December,  1847),  "And  now 
that  he  is  gone  who  bound  us  by  blood,  I  think  we 
must  draw  a  little  nearer  together,  for  at  this  time  of 
day  we  cannot  afford  to  spare  any  friends.  I  wonder 
to  think  —  here  with  the  ocean  betwixt  us  —  that  I  have 
suffered  you  to  live  so  near  me  and  have  not  won  from 
the  weeks  and  months  more  frequent  intercourse. " 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  admirable  than  the  con 
versations,  some  of  which  I  heard,  between  these  two 
in  the  Old  Manse.  I  had  heard  at  Cambridge  a  story 
that  Audubon  called  once  to  consult  this  lady  on  the 
lichens  of  her  neighbourhood,  and  found  her  hearing  at 


252  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

once  the  lesson  of  a  Harvard  student  in  differential 
calculus,  correcting  the  translation  of  another  from 
Sophocles,  at  the  same  time  shelling  peas,  and  rocking 
her  grandchild's  cradle  with  her  foot ;  a  story  not 
incredible,  and  quite  characteristic  of  the  New  England 
women  who  were  most  alive  to  the  intellectual  move 
ments  of  their  time.  The  Old  Manse,  while  Mrs. 
Ripley  and  her  daughters  lived  there,  and  the  Emerson 
house,  were  systole  and  diastole  of  what  my  friend 
Stedman  called  the  Cor  Concordia.  Mrs.  Ripley  and 
her  friend  Elizabeth  Hoar  appeared  to  me  especially 
in  accord  with  the  intellectual  opinions  of  Emerson. 
Once  I  mentioned  to  Mrs.  Ripley  a  heated  discussion 
we  had  in  Divinity  College  on  miracles.  She  said,  with 
her  soft  solemnity,  "  I  cannot  believe  in  the  miracles, 
because  I  believe  in  God.  " 

There  were  nearly  always  visitors  at  Concord,  but 
from  among  them  I  must  single  out  one,  whom  I  saw 
one  morning  emerge  from  Emerson's  door  —  one  whose 
face  bore  upon  it  something  of  the  same  spiritual  light 
as  that  of  the  man  he  had  been  visiting.  This  was 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  whom  I  afterwards  met  in  Cam 
bridge,  and  found  that  the  nobleness  of  his  counte 
nance  was  a  reflection  from  within.  I  did  not  then 
know  that  the  white  hair  around  his  youthful  face  was 
a  true  halo,  set  there  by  a  long  spiritual  struggle,  and 
marking  a  costly  victory.  Knowing  that  he  was  an 
Oxonian  poet  who  had  crossed  the  ocean  to  be  near 
Emerson,  I  used  to  gaze  upon  him  with  love  as  he 
passed  Divinity  College  almost  daily,  on  his  way  to 
the  home  of  the  Nortons,  who  were  as  brother  and 
sisters  to  him.  Emerson  lent  me  Clough's  "Bothie" 


CONCORDIA.  253 

and  the  "  Ambarvalia,"  which  he  loved  to  quote  on  his 
walks. 

With  what  feelings  Clough  regarded  Emerson 
appears  in  these  notes  in  the  Memoir  of  him  by  his 
wife  :  — 

"  Sunday.  — Loads  of  talk  with  Emerson  all  morn 
ing.  Breakfast  at  eight  displays  two  girls  and  a  boy, 
the  family.  Dinner  at  2.30.  Walk  with  Emerson  to 
a  wood  with  a  prettyish  pool.  Concord  is  very  bare  (so 
is  the  country  in  general)  ;  it  is  a  small  sort  of  a  vil 
lage,  almost  entirely  of  wood  houses,  painted  white, 
with  Venetian  blinds,  green  outside,  with  two  white 
wooden  churches  —  one  with  a  stone  fa9ade  of  Doric 
columns,  however.  .  .  .  There  are  some  American 
elms,  of  a  weeping  kind,  and  sycamores,  i.e.  planes  ; 
but  the  wood  is  mostly  pine  —  white  pine  and  yellow 
pine  —  somewhat  scrubby,  occupying  the  tops  of  the 
low  banks,  and  marshy  hay-land  between,  very  brown 
now.  A  little  brook  runs  through  to  the  Concord 
river. 

"At  6.30,  tea  and  Mr.  Thoreau,  and  presently  Mrs. 
Ellery  Charming,  Miss  Channing,  and  others." 

"Just  back  at  Cambridge  after  my  visit  to  Emerson. 
I  was  rather  sleepless  there,  but  it  is  very  good  to  go  to 
him.  He  appears  to  take  things  very  coolly,  and  not 
to  meddle  with  religious  matters  of  any  kind.  Since 
visiting  him,  I  feel  a  good  deal  more  reconciled  to  mere 
'  subsistence.'  If  one  can  only  have  a  little  reasonable 
satisfactory  intercourse  now  and  then,  subsistence  may 
be  to  some  purpose.  But  to  live  in  a  vain  show  of 
society  would  not  do  long.  The  Boston  people  have 


254  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

been  too  well  off,  and  don't  know  the  realities.  Em 
erson  is  really  substantive." 

"  Emerson  is  the  only  profound  man  in  this  country." 

Frank  Sanborn,  in  whom  are  embodied  the  traditions 
of  Concord,  has  told  its  personal  history  in  his  "  Tho- 
reau." 

Some  may  imagine  that  in  such  a  town  as  this  all 
the  children,  like  Zal  in  Firdusi's  epic,  wrere  born  grey- 
haired,  but  rather  like  Zoroaster  they  were  born  laugh 
ing.  Concord  was  always  remarkable  for  the  large 
number  of  its  lovely  little  people,  who  might  be  seen  in 
the  winter  skating  on  the  marble  snow  through  the  pine 
woods,  and  in  the  summer  bathing  in  the  river,  and  at 
all  times  boating.  And  for  young  men  and  maidens, 
Goethe's  Weimar  with  its  court  had  hardly  more  fes 
tivities  than  Emerson's  Concord.  Over  the  graves  of 
the  Puritans  went  on  dances,  picnics,  berrying  parties  ; 
on  the  Musketaquid,  where  Eliot  the  Apostle  terrified 
the  red  men  with  a  vision  of  retributions  more  savage 
than  their  own,  gay  barges  were  sometimes  seen  con 
veying  Cleopatra  and  her  dusky  beauties  to  be  attacked 
bv  "salvages"  in  war-paint  darting  from  river-sides 
fringed  with  waterlilies ;  and  the  grim  ' '  embattled 
farmers"  who  began  the  revolution  sometimes  returned 
on  their  anniversary  to  masquerade  with  their  fair 
descendants. 

Once  in  that  neighbourhood  I  met  with  an  unquiet 
soul  yearning  for  higher  social  conditions,  which  had 
taken  shape  in  his  mind  after  the  pattern  shewn  by 
Fourier.  "Have  you  ever  heard,"  I  asked,  "  of  the 
child  that  went  about  lamenting  and  searching  for  the 


CONCORDIA.  255 

beautiful  butterfly  which  she  had  lost  ?  The  butterfly 
had  softly  alighted  upon  her  head,  and  sat  there  while 
the  search  went  on.  May  not  this  fable  apply  to  one 
who,  living  in  Concord,  searches  as  far  as  France  for  a 
true  society?" 

But,  when  I  was  last  in  Concord,  it  was  to  Germany 
some  seemed  wandering,  after  a  philosophy ;  and  the 
butterfly  had  changed  to  a  grasshopper,  which,  near 
the  "Summer  School  of  Philosophy,"  chirped  me  a 
tale  of  Tithonus,  —  or  Transcendentalism  outliving  its 
time  and  shrivelling  to  metaphysics.  Not  such  was  the 
voice  that  spake  with  no  past  at  its  back  !  "  Concordia" 
is  not  to  be  muffled  in  metaphysics,  as  for  one  whose 
"  Finis"  was  written  in  skull-bones  instead  of  flowers. 

u  Now  break  up  the  useless  mould : 

Its  only  purpose  is  fulfilled. 
May  our  eyes  with  joy  behold 
A  \vork  to  prove  us  not  unskilled. 
Wield  the  hammer,  wield, 
Till  the  frame  shall  yield ! 
That  the  bell  aloft  may  rise 
The  form  in  thousand  fragments  flies." 


256  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 


xxiv. 

NATHANIEL  AND  SOPHIA  HAWTHORNE. 

ON  a  clay  in  Concord  I  saw  the  two  men  whom 
Michael  Angelo  might  have  chosen  as  emblems 
of  Morning  and  Twilight,  to  be  carved  over  the  gates 
of  the  New  World.  Emerson  emerged  from  his  modern 
home,  and  the  shade  of  well-trimmed  evergreens  in 
front,  with  "shining  morning  face,"  his  eye  beaming 
with  its  newest  vision  of  the  golden  year.  Hawthorne, 
at  the  other  extreme  of  the  village,  came  softly  out  of 
his  earlier  home,  the  Old  Manse  —  the  grey-gabled 
mansion,  where  dwelt  in  the  past  men  and  women 
who  have  gained  new  lease  of  existence  through  his 
genius  —  and  stepped  along  the  avenue  of  ancient  ash- 
trees,  which  made  a  fit  frame  around  him.  A  superb 
man  he  was  !  His  erect,  full,  and  shapely  figure  might 
have  belonged  to  an  athlete,  were  it  not  for  the  grace 
and  reserve  which  rendered  the  strength  of  frame  un 
obtrusive.  The  massive  forehead  and  brow,  with  dark 
locks  on  either  side,  the  strong  nose  and  mouth,  with 
another  soul  beneath  them,  might  be  the  physiognomy 
of  a  military  man  or  political  leader  —  some  man  im 
pelled  by  powerful  public  passions  ;  but  with  this  man 
there  came  through  the  large  soft  e}'es  a  gentle  glow 
which  suffused  the  face  and  spiritualised  the  form. 


NATHANIEL   AND    SOPHIA   HAWTHORNE.        257 

No  wonder  such  fascination  held  his  college  fellows  to 
him  !  Longfellow  used  to  talk  in  poetry  when  his  early 
days  at  Bowdoin  with  Hawthorne  were  the  theme  ;  and 
the  memory  of  President  Pierce  has  lost  some  stains 
through  his  lifelong  devotion  to  his  early  friend. 

How  the  personages  who  had  long  before  preceded 
him  in  that  first  home  of  his  manhood  had  become  his 
familiar  friends  and  visitors  —  preferred  to  others  sepa 
rated  from  him  by  reason  of  their  flesh  and  blood  — 
no  reader  of  "  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse  "  need  be 
told.  As  he  came  down  the  avenue,  unconscious  of 
any  curious  or  admiring  eye  resting  on  him,  every  step 
seemed  a  leap,  as  if  his  shadowy  familiars  w^ere  whis 
pering  happy  secrets.  What  was  this  genius  loci  think 
ing  of  as  he  walked  there  ?  It  may  have  been  about 
that  time  he  mentioned  the  Old  Manse  to  a  friend,  and 
wrote  :  "  The  trees  of  the  avenue  —  how  many  leaves 
have  fallen  since  I  last  saw  them  !  "  It  was  always  on 
the  fallen  leaf  that  Hawthorne  found  the  sentence  for 
his  romance,  but  to  what  a  beautiful  new  life  did  it 
germinate  there  ! 

It  is  an  almost  solemn  reflection  that  in  that  same 
Old  Manse,  and  in  the  same  room,  were  written  Emer 
son's  "  Nature"  and  Hawthorne's  "  Goodman  Brown." 

On  the  twenty-eighth  birthday  of  the  American  Re 
public  was  born  also  this  last  wizard  of  Salem  ;  and 
the  spirit  of  the  day,  as  well  as  of  the  place,  was  potent 
in  him.  Much  of  the  romance  of  early  American  his 
tory  gathers  about  Salem.  Ix,  is  a  charming  old  town, 
with  broad  streets  overarched  by  the  foliage  of  aged 
elms,  and  with  memorable  houses  preserved  amid  the 
mansions  of  its  cultured  citizens.  Its  oldest  families 


258  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 


are  sprung  from  men  who  began  life  as  seafarers  and 
became  merchants.  I  know  not  whether  it  be  because 
Beauty  insists  on  rising  from  even  such  distant  waves, 
but  the  Salem  people  and  their  homes  always  appeared 
to  me  to  possess  a  peculiar  charm.  Here  young  Na 
thaniel  could  read  on  Gallows  Hill,  where  the  witches 
were  hung,  the  tragical  story  of  that  era,  to  the  time 
when  the  people  arose  and  broke  open  the  prison  doors 
of  those  victims,  and  entered  the  door  of  the  judge, 
whom  they  forced  to  kneel  and  ask  pardon  of  outraged 
humanity.  On  the  neighbouring  sea-beach  he  was  wont 
to  wander  in  the  twilight  and  see  —  sombre  Astarte 
shall  we  say  ?  —  rising  from  the  waves,  where  his  fathers 
had  commanded  ships  of  war  or  merchandise.  From 
these  years  grew  many  of  those  mystical  "  Twice-Told 
Tales  "  in  which  all  the  moonlight  and  starlight  of  New 
England  history  is  garnered.  When  they  were  first 
read,  some  thought  even  the  author's  name  a  myth. 
"Nathaniel"  had  been  suggested  by  the  Puritan's 
fondness  for  scriptural  names,  and  "  Hawthorne"  had 
an  obvious  significance ;  and,  indeed,  the  letter  w, 
which  the  author  inserted  in  the  old  Wiltshire  name, 
may  have  represented  some  conscious  spiritualisation 
of  his  family  tree.  His  ancestor  who  planted  the 
American  branch  of  Hathornes  persecuted  Quakers, 
the  next  persecuted  witches.  The  best  compensation 
for  their  lives  was  when  they  were  turned  into  gloomily 
picturesque  figures  by  the  art  of  their  descendant,  and 
the  blood  shed  by  their  thorns  tinted  the  blossoms  of 
Hawthorne. 

Caiiyle  used  to  say  a  good  word  for  his  pet  "  sur 
vival,  "  Calvin,  even  in  the  Servetus  affair.     Think  of 


NATHANIEL    AND    SOPHIA   HAWTHORNE.        259 

the  amount  of  sincerity  and  force  of  purpose  required 
to  make  a  man  burn  his  fellowman  to  ashes  !  Whereon 
one's  comment  might  be  :  But  what  Medusa  must  that 
creed  be  which,  three  centuries  after  Calvin's  death, 
can  chain  the  heart  of  a  giant  nursed  at  that  stony 
breast !  The  infernal  sincerity  and  force  of  those 
Puritan  soldiers,  William  Hathorne  and  his  son  John, 
transmitted  their  spell  also  to  Hawthorne,  but  not  to 
bind  his  heart.  "I  know  not,"  he  wrote,  "whether 
these  ancestors  of  mine  bethought  themselves  to  repent 
and  ask  pardon  of  Heaven  for  their  cruelties,  or 
whether  they  are  now  groaning  under  the  heavy  conse 
quences  of  them  in  another  state  of  being.  At  all 
events,  I,  the  present  writer,  hereby  take  shame  upon 
myself  for  their  sakes,  and  pray  that  any  curse  incurred 
by  them  —  as  I  have  heard,  and  as  the  dreary  and 
unprosperous  condition  of  the  race  for  some  time  back 
would  argue  to  exist  —  may  now  and  henceforth  be 
removed."  The  last  shadow  of  Calvinism  lay  in  the 
persistence  of  this  notion  of  a  transmitted  curse, 
which,  however  refined,  held  the  American  Merlin  in  a 
prison  of  air.  The  transmutation  of  subjective  into 
objective  facts  was  a  more  terrible  tendency  in  Haw 
thorne  than  in  Swedenborg ;  for  Hawthorne  did  not 
project  his  fancies  into  conventionalised,  but  into 
natural  forms.  He  still  uses  the  fossil  word  "sin." 
The  punishers  of  guilt  on  his  stage  are  palpable,  like 
the  Furies  of  JEschylus,  which  were  so  fatal  to  sensi 
tive  women  in  Athens  ;  and  neither  JEschylus  nor  any 
other  writer  has  described  the  fatal  spiritual  pheno 
mena  with  greater  intensity  of  realisation  and  more 
subtle  art. 


200  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

"The  Celestial  Railway"  was  the  first  piece  by 
Hawthorne  that  penetrated  onr  Southern  region.  It 
was  copied  in  the  newspapers  of  that  region,  and 
much  enjoyed  as  a  satire  upon  tho  rationalistic  tenden 
cies  of  the  North.  When  I  became  old  enough  to 
appreciate  the  humour  of  that  allegory,  and  the 
"  serene  strength"  which  Emerson  found  in  it,  I  was 
also  able  to  recognise  its  re-actionary  spirit.  And  years 
later,  recognising  Hawthorne  as  the  one  American 
whose  genius  was  comparable  with  that  of  Emerson 
for  power,  it  was  my  conviction  that  the  piece  I  have 
mentioned,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  "  Mosses  from 
an  Old  Manse,"  belong  to  the  earlier  and  unsunned 
time  of  his  life.  "My  son,"  said  Goethe's  mother, 
"whenever he  had  a  grief  put  it  into  a  poem,  and  so 
got  rid  of  it."  A  dismal  day  cast  its  last  shadows  on 
those  "Mosses,"  and  a  careful  eye  may  find  them 
sheathing  here  and  there  roses  of  the  fairer  morning 
that  had  come  upon  his  life 

In  his  earliest  tales,  written  in  Salem,  there  is 
revealed,  along  with  the  ever-appealing  intellect,  a  sen 
sitive  and  loving  nature,  thirsting  for  affection,  faint 
with  growing  despair  of  finding  a  nature  responsive  to 
his  deep  heart.  In  183G  Margaret  Fuller  wrote  to  a 
friend,  "I  took  a  two  or  three  year  old  'Token,'  and 
chanced  on  a  story  called  '  The  Gentle  Boy,'  which  I 
remembered  to  have  heard  was  written  by  somebody  in 
Salem.  It  is  marked  by  so  much  grace  and  delicacy 
of  feeling  that  I  am  very  desirous  to  know  the  author, 
whom  I  take  to  be  a  lady." 

Meantime  in  that  same  old  town,  though  unknown 
as  the  maiden  of  his  fable  that  stood  near  slumbering 


NATHANIEL   AND    SOPHIA   HAWTHORNE.        261 

David  Swan,  was  dwelling  near  Hawthorne  the  heart 
that  held  his  sunbeam.  A  kind  and  intelligent  physi 
cian  dwelt  in  Salem,  with  his  three  lovely  daughters, 
dowered  only  with  riches  of  mind  and  heart.  Of  these 
sisters  Peabody,  all  lived  to  do  honour  to  the  woman 
hood  of  America.  Mary,  as  Mrs.  Horace  Mann,  was 
able  to  assist  her  eminent  husband  in  his  educational 
work  East  and  West,  recorded  but  too  modestly  in  her 
beautiful  memoir  of  that  noble  man.  Elizabeth,  by  an 
unwearied  zeal  in  the  pursuit  of  every  high  ideal,  be 
came  a  kind  of  saintly  abbess  at  Concord,  of  whom  I 
heard  Emerson  say  that  her  recollections  and  cor 
respondence  would  comprise  the  spiritual  history  of 
her  time.  Sophia,  as  the  wife  of  Hawthorne,  aided  in 
the  realisation  of  ideals  as  beautiful  as  any  she  dreamed 
while  a  favourite  pupil  in  the  studio  of  Allston. 

It  was  with  a  certain  despair  that  Hawthorne  made 
his  first  pilgrimage  to  the  Brook  Farm  community,  — 
the  wild  plunge  of  a  starved  heart  to  find  some  other 
world.  He  found  his  millennium  in  a  heart.  He  was 
a  stranger  in  the  land  of  promise,  but  found  his  ideal 
community,  which  consisted  of  two,  whose  model  halls 
were  in  the  most  ancient  and  solitary  mansion  of  Con 
cord  village.  There  was  indeed  one  other  member  of 
the  Old  Manse  community, — Poverty  ;  but  never  was 
poor  relation  treated  more  good-humoureclly. 

No  other  !  Yes,  Happiness.  To  read  Hawthorne's 
li  Notes"  of  these  years  starts  to  the  eyes  tears  that 
flash  prismatic  hues.  He  is  still  "the  obscurest  man 
of  letters  in  America  ;  "  he  is  poor  and  without  pros 
pect  of  becoming  otherwise ;  and  he  feels  himself  su 
premely  blessed.  His  honeymoon  never  waned.  He 


262  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

compares  himself  to  Adam  with  Eve  beside  him,  and 
cannot  think  Eden  could  have  been  very  different  from 
their  garden  with  its  Balm-of-Gilead  trees  and  its 
unforbidden  apples  All  the  four  rivers  of  paradise 
were  merged  in  the  Musketaquid,  gently  streaming 
past,  adorned  with  lilies  holding  gold  of  Havilah,  and 
reflecting  the  scarlet  cardinal-flower,  which  he  would 
have  accepted  as  a  confessor  had  there  been  any  snake 
in  his  garden. 

He  gave  his  perfect  happiness  as  a  reason  why  he 
did  not  seek  from  Emerson  his  solution  of  the  riddle 
of  the  universe.  But  Hawthorne  could  not  escape  the 
cloven  tongues  of  his  time ;  therefore  was  he  at  Con 
cord.  He  himself  speaks  of  the  effect  of  "  living  for 
three  years  under  the  subtle  influence  of  an  intellect 
like  Emerson's."  While  yet  his  art  was  working  in  its 
labyrinthine  grotto,  its  crystals  correspond  with  the 
roses  of  Emerson's  bower. 

There  is  an  allegorical  flower  growing  out  of  a  grave, 
so  often  met  with  in  Hawthorne's  pages  that  it  can 
never  fade  from  his  escutcheon.  In  his  early  life  it 
promised  a  fatal  quality,  like  that  in  "Septimius" 
which  so  closely  resembled  the  flower  of  perpetual  life. 
M.  Emile  Montegut  has  spoken  of  Hawthorne  as  a 
romancier  petsimiste ;  and,  superficial  as  the  criticism 
is,  there  are  some  startling  correspondences  between 
the  early  fancies  of  Hawthorne  and  the  great  pessimis 
tic  systems.  It  is  not  probable  that  Hawthorne  could 
have  read  Firdusi's  history  of  Zohak  when  he  wrote 
"The  Man  with  a  Snake  in  his  Bosom;"  and  still 
less  that  he  knew  the  now  familiar  legend  of  Buddha 
when  he  wrote  the  following  in  his  journal  at  Salein, 


NATHANIEL   AND    SOPHIA   HAWTHORNE.        263 

1836  :  —  "  Two  lovers  plan  the  building  of  a  pleasure- 
house  on  a  certain  spot  of  ground,  but  various  seeming 
accidents  prevent  it.  Once  they  find  a  group  of  mis 
erable  children  there  ;  once  it  is  the  scene  where  crime 
is  plotted  ;  at  last  the  dead  body  of  one  of  the  lovers 
or  of  a  dear  friend  is  found  there  ;  and,  instead  of  a 
pleasure-house,  they  build  a  marble  tomb.  The  moral 
is  that  there  is  no  place  on  earth  fit  for  the  site  of  a 
pleasure-house,  because  there  is  no  spot  that  may  not 
have  been  saddened  by  human  grief,  stained  by  crime, 
or  hallowed  by  death." 

One  day  there  was  a  Mayday  festival  for  the  children 
of  Concord.  Emerson  gave  the  use  of  his  woods  and 
a  Maypole.  While  the  ladies  were  out  there  making 
the  preparations,  Hawthorne  cany?  up  and  said  he 
would  like  to  see  the  children  dancing  if  he  could  do  so 
without  being  perceived.  There  was  found  for  him 
the  hollow  trunk  of  a  tree  long  dead  ;  he  hid  himself 
there  as  the  children  were  coming  and  gazed  upon  them. 
He  left  unperceived.  Was  it  a  tree  grown  from  a  slip 
of  Buddha's  Bo-tree,  brought  over  by  the  Puritans  to 
represent  their  dogma  of  a  curse  on  nature  ?  It  could 
not  live  on  Emerson's  farm,  and  its  last  service  was  to 
give  Hawthorne  his  outlook  on  the  dance  of  happy 
children  in  which  he  could  not  freely  unite.  Yet  was 
he  a  charming  playmate  to  his  children  and  a  profoundly 
sympathetic  man  ;  though  to  the  last  he  could  not  part 
with  his  "  horse  of  the  night,"  as  Emerson  styled  it,  a 
more  delightful  companion  when  dismounted  could  not 
be  found. 

Emerson  feared  the  melancholy  temperament  of  his 
most  distinguished  neighbour,  but  recognised  his  genius 


264  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

and  his  almost  magical  art.  So  long  as  Margaret 
Fuller  frequented  Concord,  she  was  an  element  which 
enabled  them  to  mingle  ;  but  when  that  mediator  was 
gone,  the  two  shrank  a  little  from  each  other  by  elec 
tive  necessity,  while  preserving  mutual  esteem.  Haw 
thorne  may  have  been  afraid  of  casting  a  shadow  across 
that  path  of  sunshine  visible  wherever  Emerson  moved, 
and  he  may  also  have  feared  to  meet  the  unfamiliar 
people  who  sought  the  Sage.  Here  was  a  man  whose 
nerves  were  without  integument,  terribly  exposed  to 
all  kinds  of  impressions  from  without.  If  any  person 
or  thing  came  into  real  contact  with  his  mind,  it  sank 
deeply  into  him,  drew  upon  his  heart's  blood,  and 
remained  until  it  was  born  into  some  mental  offspring. 
Every  new  experience  was  a  fatality  to  him  for  good 
or  ill.  No1j  every  one  who  saw  how  reserved  and 
gentle  he  was  knew  the  great  struggle  by  which  a 
nature  full  of  fiery  forces  had  been  brought  into  har 
mony  with  its  ideal  elements.  Beneath  these  remained 
the  lava  soil,  which  must  needs  nurse  into  life  every 
seed  fallen  in  it. 

We  have  seen  that  his  ancestors  became  his  literary 
offspring.  The  genesis  of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter,"  the 
New  England  epic,  has  been  shadowed  forth  by  him 
self;  and  there  is  nothing  more  thrilling  in  it  than  the 
scene  of  Hawthorne  himself,  in  the  prosaic  Custom 
house  pressing  the  faded  broidered  "A"  to  his  breast 
till  it  burns.  But  \vhence  came  the  letter  and  the  tale  ? 
From  the  brow  of  Cain.  (Two  great  pieces  of  imagin 
ative  art  in  New  England  came  from  the  Bible  when  its 
altar-chain  was  broken.  The  other  is  Dr.  Holmes's 
romance  of  Eve  and  the  Serpent,  entitled  "  Elsie  Yen- 


NATHANIEL    AND    SOPHIA    HAWTHORNE.         265 

ner.")  The  "  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  "  was  once 
the  doomed  House  of  Agamemnon.  Nearly  all  the 
tales  of  Hawthorne,  even  the  smallest,  have  bloomed 
from  seed  taken,  as  it  were,  from  the  cerements  of 
royal  mummies,  where  they  symbolised  eternal  ideas, 
albeit  the  bodies  they  receive  from  his  genius  have  such 
an  American  look.  That,  I  believe,  is  why  they  pos 
sess  the  unique  character  of  seeming  new  and  startling 
every  time  one  reads  them.  They  do  not  appear  like 
literary  creations,  but  draw  the  reader  at  once  to  the 
man  in  whom  these  things  exist.  His  writings  are 
overcast  with  the  pain  of  a  heart  held  tinder  a  necessity 
to  expose  its  inmost  recesses  to  the  world. 

The  Misses  Hunt,  with  whom  I  boarded  during  my 
first  summer  at  Concord,  told  me  the  sad  story  of  their 
near  relative  who  drowned  herself  in  the  river.  Martha 
Hunt  was  young  and  attractive ;  she  had  interested 
George  Bradford,  Emerson,  and  other  scholars  by  her 
serious  studies  and  high  aims.  Her  parents  and  rela 
tives  were  poor  but  affectionate?  and  anxious  to  further 
her  intellectual  growth ;  but  she  could  not  u  beat  her 
music  through."  The  tidings  spread  through  the  vil 
lage  that  she  had  disappeared,  and  her  outer  garments 
were  found  beside  the  river,  somewhat  below  the  Old 
Manse,  where  Hawthorne  was  then  residing.  He  with 
a  friend  shoved  off  in  a  boat,  and  late  in  the  night, 
under  a  fitful  moonlight,  brought  to  the  surface  the 
form  of  the  poor  maiden.  The  tragedy  wrote  itself 
inevitably  in  "  The  Blithedale  Romance,"  and  the  artist 
appears  simply  in  setting  it  where  it  belonged.  Al 
though  the  Brook  -Farmers  took  it  to  heart  that  such  a 
tragedy  should  be  associated  with  their  cheery  com- 


266  EMERSON  AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

munity,  the  incident  sets  fairly  in  "  Blithedale."  The 
suicide  of  Martha  Hunt  was  an  incident  of  the  tran 
scendental  movement.  That  there  were  not  other  tra 
gedies  of  the  kind  is  surprising.  Many  whose  story 
has  found  no  chronicler  must  have  been  brought  into 
sad  discord  with  their  environment. 

I  suspect  that  the  Faun  in  "  Transformation  "  may 
be  partly  traceable  to  an  incident  which,  though  found 
in  a  book,  was  of  a  kind  likely  to  haunt  Hawthorne's 
imagination.  In  his  "Recollections  of  Byron  and 
Shelley"  Trelawney  says  :  "I  asked  Fletcher  to  bring 
me  a  glass  of  water  ;  and  on  his  leaving  the  room,  to 
confirm  or  remove  my  doubts  as  to  the  cause  of  his 
lameness,  I  uncovered  the  Pilgrim's  feet  and  was 
answered  —  both  his  feet  were  clubbed  and  the  legs 
withered  to  the  knee ;  the  form  and  face  of  an  Apollo, 
with  the  feet  and  legs  of  a  sylvan  satyr."  Trelawney 's 
book  appeared  just  as  Hawthorne  was  starting  out 
from  Liverpool  on  his  journey  to  Italy.  The  incident 
just  quoted  was  one  which  would  have  shocked  his 
moral  sense,  but  also  might  easily  have  taken  shape  in 
his  artistic  sense,  and  re-appeared  in  the  spiritualised 
Faun.  Hawthorne  very  rarely  gained  any  hint  from 
any  other  imagination.  The  only  story  he  ever  wrote 
which  might  have  been  suggested  by  another  is 
"Feathertop."  The  theme  is  nearly  that  of  Tieck's 
"  Scarecrow  "  {Die  Vogehcheuclie) ,  and  turns  on  the 
career  of  a  scarecrow  which  a  witch  has  made  into  a 
fine  gentleman.  In  Hawthorne's  early  journal  at  Con 
cord  he  speaks  of  trying  to  translate  a  story  of  Tieck's, 
and  probably  this  was  the  one  ;  probably  also  he  never 
got  through  it,  for  the  two  stories  diverge  widely. 


NATHANIEL    AND    SOPHIA   HAWTHORNE.        267 

There  is  a  little  story  of  Hawthorne's  which  may  have 
flowered  out  of  the  tradition  of  an  old  house  at  Concord 
—  "A  Virtuoso' s  Collection. ' '  This  Virtuoso,  who  has 
collected  so  many  mythical  things,  and  such  specimens 
as  a  sonnet  by  Jones  Very  and  an  humble-bee,  con 
tributed  by  Emerson,  turns  out  to  be  the  Wandering 
Jew.  It  was  probably  about  ten  years  after  this  was 
written  that  Hawthorne  purchased  the  old  house  at 
Concord  known  as  the  Wayside.  Concerning  this  new 
residence  he  wrote  to  his  friend  Gr.  W.  Curtis,  "I  know 
nothing  of  the  history  of  the  house  except  Thoreau's 
telling  me  that  it  was  inhabited  a  century  or  two  ago 
by  a  man  who  believed  he  should  never  die."  When 
the  Wayside  was  prepared  for  Hawthorne's  residence, 
Mr.  Bronson  Alcott  undertook  to  make  it  and  the  hill 
side  behind  it  picturesque,  and  his  visionary  theories 
about  the  duration  of  life  may  have  unfolded  for  Haw 
thorne  another  leaf  on  the  stem  which  was  growing 
from  the  Virtuoso,  Ahasuerus,  to  Septimius.  Mr. 
Alcott  once  told  me  that  he  came  in  with  this  century 
and  intended  to  go  out  with  it.  His  old  theories  about 
the  effect  on  life  and  character  of  vegetables  ripened  in 
the  sun,  and  such  as  are  underground,  demonic,  had  an 
irritating  effect  upon  Carlyle.  "There  is  Piccadilly," 
he  broke  out  once  while  they  walked  and  talked  there  ; 
"there  it  has  been  for  a  hundred  years,  and  there  it 
will  be  when  you  and  your  damned  potato-gospel  are 
dead  and  forgotten."  But  Hawthorne  found  in  Alcott 
and  his  speculations  a  picturesque  subject.  It  is  curious 
enough  to  find  the  young  writer  about  the  Eternal  Jew 
afterwards  dwelling  in  this  house  in  Concord  said  to 
have  been  occupied  by  one  of  the  undying,  and  the 


268  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

scenery  of  the  old  Indian  settlement  with  its  wizard 
Sachem  re-appearing  as  Concord  and  its  vegetarian 
visionary. 

It  must  have  seemed  to  Nathaniel  and  Sophia  Haw 
thorne  a  very  long  pilgrimage  that  had  brought  them 
from  the  Old  Manse  to  that  pretty  villa,  little  as  is  the 
distance.  It  was  with  a  sigh  that  Hawthorne  responded 
to  the  kindness  of  the  Hon.  George  Bancroft,  Secre 
tary  of  the  Navy,  in  appointing  him  surveyor  of  the 
port  of  Salem.  It  ended  his  poverty,  but  also  his  par 
adise.  It  seemed  also  a  farewell  to  his  literary  aims. 
It  was  during  the  years  between  1846,  when  he  received 
his  appointment,  and  1849,  when  he  was  removed,  that 
he  was  haunted  by  the  spirits  of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter." 
One  very  intimate  with  him  told  me  a  pleasant  story 
about  it.  One  wintry  day  he  received  at  his  office  no 
tification  that  his  services  would  no  longer  be  required. 
With  heaviness  of  heart  lie  repairs  to  his  humble  home. 
His  young  wife  recognises  the  change,  and  stands  wait 
ing  for  the  silence  to  be  broken.  At  length  he  falters, 
"I  am  removed  from  office."  Then  she  leaves  the 
room  ;  soon  she  returns  with  fuel  and  kindles  a  bright 
fire  with  her  own  hand  ;  next  brings  pen,  paper,  ink, 
and  sets  them  beside  him.  Then  she  toucnes  the  sad 
man  on  the  shoulder,  and,  as  lie  turns  to  the  beaming 
face,  says,  "Now  you  can  write  your  book!"  The 
cloud  cleared  away.  The  lost  office  looked  like  a  cage 
from  which  he  had  escaped.  The  book  was  written ; 
it  was  welcomed  by  the  publisher,  who  knew  how  to 
think  and  write  —  yes,  and  how  to  be  a  friend  —  James 
Fields,  and  who  never  penned  a  sentence  with  more 
pleasure  than  when  (1851)  he  wrote  to  Miss  Mitford : 


NATHANIEL    AND    SOPHIA    HAWTHORNE.         269 

11  A  few  days  ago  the  author  of  '  The  Scarlet  Letter' 
came  to  Boston  after  an  absence  of  many  months 
Every  eye  glistened  as  it  welcomed  an  author  whose 
genius  seems  to  have  filled  his  native  land  quite  sud 
denly  with  his  fame.  He  blushes  like  a  girl  when  he  is 
praised." 

When  his  old  college-friend  Franklin  Pierce  was 
nominated  for  the  Presidency,  Hawthorne  wrote  a  biog 
raphy  of  him ;  and  when,  after  election,  Pierce  ap 
pointed  him  Consul  at  Liverpool,  some,  who  did  not 
know  Hawthorne,  regarded  the  proceeding  as  a  bargain. 
The  truth  was,  Hawthorne  was  intensely  loyal  to  the 
few  intimate  friends  of  his  life,  and  he  could  not  be 
persuaded  of  anything  against  Franklin  Pierce,  who, 
indeed,  had  many  amiable  qualities.  When  Pierce  had 
become  exceedingly  unpopular  in  the  country,  Haw 
thorne  stood  by  him  even  to  his  cost,  and  insisted  on 
dedicating  "  Our  Old  Home"  to  him,  despite  the  protest 
of  his  publishers. 

This  man,  who  had  inherited  from  an  ancestry  of 
soldiers  a  port  and  courage  equal  to  the  bravest  of 
them,  had  gained  from  the  record  of  their  cruelties  a 
horror  of  bloodshed,  something  like  that  of  a  Confed 
erate  soldier  of  my  acquaintance,  who,  since  the  Amer 
ican  war  refuses  to  kill  a  mosquito.  Probably  his 
"  democratic  "  sympathies  were  largely  due  to  his  dread 
of  the  conflict  to  which  the  anti-slavery  agitation  was 
leading. 

The  shadow  that  fell  upon  Hawthorne's  patriotic 
heart  from  the  blackening  sky  of  his  country  was  for  a 
time  forgotten  in  the  shadow  of  death  that  seemed  to 
be  drawing  near  and  nearer  his  daughter  Una.  From 


270  EMERSON   AT    HOME   AND    ABROAD. 

that  long  illness  in  Rome  this  lovely  girl  seemed  to  re 
cover,  but  not  her  father.  He  came  back  to  England 
and  wrote  "Transformation."  He  went  to  Leaming 
ton  and  other  pretty  places,  but  found  that  he  could 
not  write  well  amid  ornamental  and  social  surroundings, 
so  his  dear  friend  Francis  Bennoch  found  a  wild  and 
desolate  seaside  place,  Redcar,  where,  in  a  seclusion 
like  that  of  the  Concord  snowstorms,  which  protected 
his  hours  of  inspiration,  those  exquisite  creations  were 
finished 

When  he  foresaw  the  civil  war  in  America  to  be  in 
evitable,  Hawthorne  said  to  a  friend  in  Liverpool  that 
he  meant  to  "go  home  and  die  with  the  Republic." 
The  war  did  indeed  wear  deeply  upon  his  mind  and 
health.  He  could  not  share  the  high  hopes  which  sus 
tained  his  nearest  friends  during  those  terrible  years  ; 
he  could  not  see  beyond  the  black  cloud  a  country  lib 
erated  from  the  blight  of  slavery.  To  him  the  war 
was  an  overwhelming  tragedy,  and  the  inevitable  end 
seemed  to  be  the  end  of  the  Republic. 

These  forebodings  found  much  to  foster  them  in  the 
earlier  course  of  the  war.  Hawthorne  visited  Wash 
ington,  and  on  his  return  wrote  that  strange  account 
of  his  observations  and  reflections  there  which  appeared 
in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly  "  for  July,  18G2.  That  paper 
is  a  notable  instance  of  the  subtlety  of  Hawthorne's 
art,  which  in  this  case  has  deceived  eyen  so  subtle  an 
artist  as  Henry  James,  jun.  "  The  article,"  says  Mr. 
James  in  his  Biography  of  Hawthorne,  "has  all  the 
usual  merit  of  such  sketches  on  Hawthorne's  part  — 
the  merit  of  delicate,  sportive  feeling,  expressed  with 
consummate  grace  ;  but  the  editor  of  the  periodical 


NATHANIEL   AND   SOPHIA   HAWTHORNE.        271 

appears  to  have  thought  that  he  must  give  the  antidote 
with  the  poison,  and  the  paper  is  accompanied  with 
several  little  notes  disclaiming  all  sympathy  with  the 
writer's  political  heresies."  The  foot-notes  here  men 
tioned  are  severe,  and  sometimes  contemptuous  in  then* 
rebuke  of  the  text ;  but  the}'  were  written  by  Hawthorne 
himself!  So,  at  any  rate,  I  was  assured  by  Emerson 
at  the  time,  and  as  also  about  that  time  I  passed  a 
night  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Fields  with  Hawthorne,  feel 
certain  that  this  is  the  case.  No  doubt  Mr.  Fields  had 
remonstrated  with  Hawthorne  on  some  sentiments  in 
the  contribution  to  his  magazine,  but  the  sharp  criti 
cisms  were  by  Hawthorne  on  himself. 

Moreover,  a  close  examination  of  these  criticisms 
convinced  me  that  they  represented  the  real  Hawthorne 
as  fairly  as  the  article  itself.  He  was  at  this  time  pain 
fully  divided  between  his"  old  prejudices  against  the 
Northern  agitators  for  disunion  in  the  interest  of  eman 
cipation,  and  his  growing  horror  against  a  war  for  dis 
union  begun  by  their  opponents  for  the  sake  of  slavery. 
His  patriotism,  however,  was  impregnable. 

I  have  before  me  two  letters  that  have  not  been  pub 
lished.  They  were  written  by  Emerson  and  Hawthorne 
to  English  correspondents,  from  whom  I  have  received 
them.  They  were  written  in  the  midst  of  the  war  from 
the  same  historic  town  of  Concord,  and  by  the  two 
chief  representatives  of  the  genius  of  New  England, 
dwelling  a  few  steps  from  each  other.  They  are  not 
presented  for  the  sake  of  contrast,  but  as  shewing 
what  the  two  most  far-reaching  eyes  in  America  beheld 
as  they  looked  upon  the  great  movement  whose  results 
are  now  history. 


272  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

The  letter  of  Emerson  was  written  to  the  late  Mrs. 
Joseph  Biggs,  at  whose  home  in  Leicester  he  was  a 
guest,  and  whose  friendship,  as  well  as  that  of  her  hus 
band,  he  much  valued.  In  it  he  refers  to  "  the  probity 
and  honour"  of  a  protest  she  had  written  him  "  against 
what  appears  the  governing  opinion  in  England,"  and 
continues :  —  "I  remember  that  Mr.  Biggs  in  Leicester 
questioned  me  on  the  point,  why  good  and  cultivated 
men  in  America  avoided  politics  (for  so  he  had  heard) , 
and  let  them  fall  into  bad  hands  ?  He  will  find  in  our 
calamities  to-day  the  justification  of  his  warning.  Our 
sky  is  very  dark,  but  the  feeling  is  very  general  in  the 
Union,  that  bad  as  the  war  is,  it  is  far  safer  and  better 
than  the  foregoing  peace.  Our  best  ground  of  hope 
now  is  the  healthy  sentiment  which  appears  in  reasona 
ble  people  all  over  the  country,  accepting  sacrifices,  but 
meaning  riddance  from  slavery  and  from  Southern 
domination.  I  fear  this  sentiment  is  not  yet  represented 
by  our  Government  or  its  agents  in  Europe,  but  it  is 
sporadic  in  the  country.  Indeed,  the  Governments 
of  both  England  and  America  are  far  in  the  rear  of 
their  best  constituencies  :  in  England,  as  shewn  in  the 
jesolution  with  which  the  Government  shuts  its  eyes  to 
the  building  of  ships  of  war  in  your  ports  to  attack 
the  Republic  —  now  in  this  spasm  to  throw  off  slavery. 
This  unlooked-for  attitude  of  England  is  our  gravest 
foreign  disadvantage.  But  I  have  gone  quite  too  far 
into  these  painful  politics,  whose  gloom  is  only  to  be 
relieved  by  the  largest  considerations.  I  rejoice  in  so 
many  assurances  of  sound  heart  and  clear  perception 
as  come  to  us  from  excellent  persons  in  England,  — 
among  which  I  rank  your  letter  chiefly  ;  — and  the  sig- 


NATHANIEL    AND    SOPHIA   HAWTHORNE.        273 

nificant  sympathy  of  the  Manchester  workmen,  which 
I  wish  had  been  better  met." 

The  letter  of  Hawthorne  was  to  Francis  Bennoch  :  — 
"My  DEAR  B.,  —  I  owe  you  much  in  many  ways, 
but  there  is  one  way  in  which  I  ought  not  to  be  your 
debtor,  and  that  is  in  friendly  correspondence. 

"  The  truth  is,  that  at  present  I  have  little  heart  for 
anything.  We  are,  as  you  know,  at  the  beginning  of  a 
great  war  — -  a  war  the  issue  of  which  no  man  can  pred 
icate,  and  I  for  one  have  no  inclination  to  attempt 
prophesy.  It  is  not  long  since  the  acute  ruler  of 
France — the  epigrammatic  speech-maker — announced 
to  a  startled  Europe  and  a  delighted  country  that  he 
had  gone  to  war  for  an  idea,  —  a  very  nice,  if  not  an 
absolutely  true  idea.  But  we  Yankees  have  cast  him 
entirely  into  the  shade.  We  also  have  gone  to  war, 
and  we  seem  to  have  little,  or  at  least  a  very  misty  idea 
of  what  we  are  fighting  for.  It  depends  upon  the 
speaker,  and  that  again  depends  upon  the  section  of 
the  country  in  which  his  sympathies  are  enlisted.  The 
Southern  man  will  say  :  We  fight  for  State  rights,  lib 
erty,  and  independence.  The  Middle  Western  man 
will  avow  that  he  fights  for  the  Union  ;  whilst  our 
Northern  and  Eastern  man  will  swear  that  from  the 
beginning  his  only  idea  was  liberty  to  the  Blacks  and 
the  annihilation  of  slavery.  All  are  thoroughly  in 
earnest,  and  all  pray  for  the  blessing  of  Heaven  to  rest 
upon  the  enterprise.  The  appeals  are  so  numerous, 
fervent,  and  yet  so  contradictory,  that  the  Great  Ar 
biter  to  whom  they  so  piously  and  solemnly  appeal 
must  be  sorely  puzzled  how  to  decide.  One  thing  is 
indisputable,  —  the  spirit  of  our  young  men  is  thor- 


274  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

oiighly  aroused.  Their  enthusiasm  is  boundless,  and 
the  smiles  of  our  fragile  and  delicate  women  cheer 
them  on.  When  I  hear  their  drums  beating,  and  see 
their  banners  flying,  and  witness  their  steady  marching, 
I  declare  were  it  not  for  certain  silvery  monitors  hang 
ing  by  my  temples  suggesting  prudence,  I  feel  as  if  I 
could  catch  the  infection,  shoulder  a  musket,  and  be 
off  to  the  war  myself ! 

"  Meditating  on  these  matters,  I  begin  to  think  our 
custom  as  to  war  is  a  mistake.  Why  draw  from  our 
young  men,  in  the  bloom  and  heyday  of  their  youth, 
the  soldiers  who  are  to  fight  our  battles  ?  Had  I  my 
way,  no  man  should  go  to  war  under  fifty  years  of  age, 
such  men  having  already  had  their  natural  share  of 
worldly  pleasures,  and  life's  enjoyments.  And  I  don't 
see  how  they  could  make  a  more  creditable  or  more 
honourable  exit  from  the  world's  stage  than  by  becom 
ing  food  for  powder  and  gloriously  dying  in  defence  of 
their  home  and  country.  Then  I  would  add  a  premium 
in  favour  of  recruits  of  three-score  years  and  upwards, 
as,  virtually  with  one  foot  in  the  grave,  they  would  not 
be  likely  to  run  away.  I  apprehend  that  no  people 
ever  built  up  the  skeleton  of  a  warlike  history  so  rap 
idly  as  we  are  doing.  What  a  fine  theme  for  the  poet ! 
If  you  were  not  born  a  Britisher,  from  whose  country 
we  expect  no  help  and  little  sympathy,  I  would  ask  you 
for  a  martial  strain  —  a  song  to  be  sung  by  our  camp- 
fires  to  soothe  the  feelings  and  rouse  the  energies  of 
our  troops,  inspiring  them  to  meet  like  men  the  great 
conflict  that  awaits  them,  resolved  to  conquer  or  to  die 
—  if  dying,  still  to  conquer.  Ten  thousand  poetasters 
have  tried,  and  tried  in  vain,  to  give  us  a  rousing 


NATHANIEL    AND    SOPHIA   HAWTHORNE.        275 

1  Scots  wha  hae  wi'  Wallace  bled.' 

If  we  fight  no  better  than  we  sing,  may  the  Lord  have 
mercy  upon  us,  and  upon  the  nation  ! 

"In  the  excitement  raging  everywhere,  don't  you 
feel  as  if  you  could  come  and  see  America  in  time  of 
war?  The  room  bearing  your  name  is  ready  ;  the  fire 
is  laid  ;  and  here  we  are  prepared  to  give  you  welcome. 
Come  and  occupy  the  apartment  dedicated  to  you. 
Come  and  let  us  talk  over  the  many  pleasant  evenings 
we  spent  together  in  dear  Old  England.  Come,  and  I 
promise  that  all  distracting  thoughts  and  disturbing 
circumstances  shall  be  banished  from  us.  And  although 
our  children  are  no  longer  children,  I  am  sure  they 
would  unite  with  the  elder  folk,  and  enjoy  the  oppor 
tunity  of  shewing  that  Yankee  hearts  never  forget 
kindnesses,  and  long  for  the  chance  of  repaying  them, 
not  as  a  cancelling  of  debt,  but  to  prove  how  deeply 
k  i  ndly  deeds  are  appreciated  by  them .  We  have  national 
foibles  ;  what  nation  has  not?  We  have  national  pecu 
liarities  and  whimsical  caprices,  but  we  are  none  the 
worse  for  them.  We  have  many  sins  to  answer  for  and 
many  shortcomings,  but  ingratitude  cannot  be  reckoned 
among  them.  So  come,  and  let  us  prove  that  we  are, 
one  and  all,  affectionately  your  friends. — Always,  &c., 
&c.  NATII.  HAWTHORNE." 

Shortly  after  Hawthorne's  return  from  Europe,  I  met 
him  at  a  dinner  of  the  Literary  Club  in  Boston.  A 
larger  number  than  usual  had  come  together  to  welcome 
him  home.  He  was  more  social  and  talkative  than  I 
had  ever  supposed  he  could  be,  but  was  much  aged  in 


27()  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABKOAI). 

appearance.  He  had  repaired  to  his  Concord  home, 
and,  could  he  only  have  escaped  the  sounds  of  war, 
perhaps  he  might  have  tasted  at  the  Wayside  a  drop 
of  that  elixir  which  its  old  Sachem  was  fabled  to  pos 
sess.  But  he  could  not  find  repose,  and  instead  of 
dreaming,  like  Septimius,  of  endless  life,  said  that  he 
hoped  no  trumpet,  however  angelic,  would  sound  over 
his  grave  short  of  a  thousand  years. 

When  I  passed  a  night  with  him  under  the  roof  of 
James  T.  Fields,  after  his  return  from  Washington,  he 
had  the  expression  of  one  who  had  been  wandering 
amid  ruins  —  the  ruins  of  his  country.  Mrs.  Fields 
had  invited  a  little  company,  but  after  the  first  arrivals 
Hawthorne  made  his  escape  to  his  room.  At  the  re 
quest  of  Mrs.  Fields,  I  went  to  ask  if  he  could  not 
come  down,  and  found  him  deep  in  Defoe's  "  Short 
Stories."  He  did  not  emerge  until  the  next  morning 
at  breakfast-time,  and  then,  with  the  amusing  look  of  a 
naughty  child,  pleaded  that  he  had  been  carried  off  by 
Defoe's  wicked  ghosts.  He  must,  I  think,  have  been 
contemplating  some  phantasmal  production  at  that 
time ;  for  I  remember  his  asking  me  questions  about 
the  ghost-beliefs  of  the  negroes,  among  whom  my  early 
life  was  passed.  One  of  these  was  of  a  negro  who 
saw  an  enormous  conflagration  near  by,  but  on  reaching 
the  spot  found  only  one  firecoal  and  heard  a  dog  bark. 
Hawthorne  was  interested  in  this,  and  spoke  in  a  sym 
pathetic  way  about  the  negroes  that  I  did  not  expect. 
But  he  evidently  suspected  that  the  war  conflagration 
would  end  in  a  small  ember  for  the  negroes,  and  I  sus 
pect  did  not  believe  that  race  would  be  made  happier 
than  he  had  been  bv  freedom  and  culture. 


NATHANIEL   AND    SOFFITA    HAWTHORNE.        277 

Hawthorne  could  see  between  the  Old  Manse  and  the 
Wayside  a  transformation  as  beautiful  as  that  which 
gave  Cinderella  beauty  for  ashes  :  he  saw  his  lovely 
and  gifted  children  growing  around  him  like  fulfilments 
of  what  the  riverside  flowers  had  promised  his  early 
wedded  happiness  ;  and  perhaps  it  seemed  to  him  that 
it  was  well  enough  to  pass  away  in  that  fulness  of  life. 
So  it  was.  Amidst  hearts  that  loved  him  he  was 
carried  to  his  repose  in  Sleepy  Hollow. 

And  now  that  wife,  whose  literary  ability  the  world 
was  presently  to  know  by  her  charming  ' '  Notes  on 
England  and  Italy,"  devoted  herself  to  the  work  of 
collecting  those  "  Note-Books"  of  her  husband  which 
have  made  him  an  intimate  friend  of  every  mind 
worthy  of  his  friendship.  In  London  she  made  her 
home  while  engaged  in  this  work,  and  she  was  sur 
rounded  by  the  books  and  pictures  he  had  treasured. 
"When  they  were  brought  over,  an  edition  of  "  Wa- 
verley"  which  Hawthorne  had  prized  was  seized  at  the 
Liverpool  Custom-house,  but  the  letter  she  wrote  the 
inspector  made  him  forget  all  regulations,  and  the  vol 
umes  were  forwarded. 

Hawthorne  once  wrote  from  England  to  a  friend : 
"  Of  all  things,  I  should  like  to  find  a  gravestone  in 
one  of  these  old  churchyards  with  my  name  upon  it ; 
although,  for  myself,  I  should  wish  to  be  buried  in 
America."  It  was  not  very  long  before  his  name  was 
read  on  an  English  gravestone.  On  March  4,  1871, 
when  I  stood  beside  the  open  grave  of  Mrs.  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne  in  Kensal  Green  Cemetery,  my  vision  wan 
dered  away  to  another  in  that  little  cemetery  at  Con 
cord,  which,  though  primitive,  is  also  consecrated  by 


278  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

the  dust  of  noble  spirits  ;  and  the  two,  so  sundered, 
seemed  to  represent  a  happy  tale  suddenly  broken  off, 
and  ending  with  heaviness  and  pain.  She  was  laid  to 
rest  by  those  who  had  known  and  loved  her  —  Francis 
Bennoch,  W.  H.  Channing,  Robert  Browning,  Russell 
Sturgis  ;  and  not  far  off  the  face  of  Leigh  Hunt,  from 
the  marble  over  his  grave,  seemed  to  beam  with  sym 
pathy  upon  the  two  lonely  daughters  of  his  friends. 
Before  the  coffin  was  lowered,  these  two  —  Una  and 
Rose  —  laid  upon  it,  the  one  a  wreath,  the  other  a 
cross,  of  white  camelias.  When  the  undertaker  took 
up  a  handful  of  clay,  Una  held  out  her  hand  for  it,  and 
at  the  words  "dust  to  dust"  let  the  crumbled  pieces 
fall  there  where  lay  the  form  of  her  mother. 

This  was  the  end.  As  we  turned  away  the  birds 
sang  gaily  amid  the  budding  trees.  I  remembered  the 
old  scenes  amid  which  these  bereaved  children  first 
drew  breath,  and  where,  amid  the  budding  joys  and 
heart-melodies  of  his  happiest  home,  their  father  wrote, 
4 'There  is  a  pervading  blessing  diffused  over  all  the 
world.  I  look  out  of  the  window  and  think  :  O  perfect 
day !  O  beautiful  world !  O  good  God !  And  such  a 
day  is  the  promise  of  a  blissful  eternity.  It  opens  the 
gates  of  heaven  and  gives  glimpses  far  inward." 


THOEEAU.  279 


XXV. 

THOREAU. 

WHEN  Emerson  was  giving  a  course  of  lectures  in 
my  church  at  Cincinnati,  he  consented  to  address 
the  children  on  Sunday  morning.  Many  times  have  I 
regretted  that  no  reporter  was  present  to  preserve  that 
address.  It  was  given  without  notes,  and  its  effect 
upon  the  large  assembly  of  children  could  have  been 
no  less  striking  than  that  extemporaneous  speech  deliv 
ered  by  Emerson  at  the  Burns  Centenary,  which  so 
experienced  a  critic  as  Judge  Hoar  declares  to  be  the 
grandest  piece  of  eloquence  he  ever  heard.  Emerson, 
in  this  case  as  in  that,  held  his  hearers  between  smiles 
and  tears.  He  began  by  telling  them  about  his  neigh 
bour  Henry  Thoreau,  and  his  marvellous  knowledge  of 
nature,  his  intimate  friendship  with  flowers,  and  with 
the  birds  which  lit  on  his  shoulder,  and  with  the  fishes 
which  swam  into  his  hand.  It  was  as  if  he  were  charm 
ing  the  children  with  a  fairy-tale,  or  something  omitted 
from  the  Gospel  stories,  which  at  the  same  time  they 
felt  to  be  true. 

Not  very  long  after  (18G2)  Thoreau  died  —  it  was  at 
the  age  of  fojrty-fi  ve  —  and  beside  his  grave  at  Concord 
Emerson  delivered  an  address  in  which  he  said,  "The 
country  knows  not  yet,  or  in  the  least  part,  how  great 


280  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

a  son  it  has  lost."  And  this  is  still  true,  although  few 
men  have  ever  had  such  full  and  interesting  memoirs. 
Emerson  wrote  a  sketch  of  his  life ;  Ellery  Charming 
has  written  a  biography  and  a  fine  poem  concerning 
him ;  James  Russell  Lowell,  Wentworth  Higginson, 
and  George  W.  Curtis  have  written  excellent  essays 
upon  him ;  and  this  year  Frank  B.  Sanborn  has  pub 
lished  a  Life  of  Thoreau,  full  of  interesting  details  and 
shewing  his  unique  relation  to  Concord.,  of  which  he 
was  a  native.  In  England,  a  book  concerning  him  by 
u  H.  A.  Page"  appeared  four  years  ago,  and  there 
have  been  some  articles  about  him.  I  remember  an 
able  one  in  the  "Saturday  Review,"  in  which,  how 
ever,  he  was  described,  not  happily  I  thought,  as  "an 
American  Rousseau."  Notwithstanding  all  this,  there 
are  comparatively  few  in  America  or  England  who  have 
read  the  works  of  this  rare  genius.  It  was  about  four 
years  after  his  ' '  Week  on  the  Concord  and  the  Mer- 
rimack  "  was  published  that  I  spoke  to  him  about  that 
charming  book,  and  he  told  me  that  the  entire  edition 
of  it  was  still  on  the  publisher's  shelf  with  exception 
of  copies  he  had  given  to  his  friends.  Although  he 
had  found  himself  in  debt  for  the  printing,  I  thought 
he  spoke  of  his  book's  obscurity  with  a  certain  satis 
faction.  Thoreau's  books  are  so  physiognomical  that 
they  seem  to  possess  his  own  aversion  to  publicity. 
Like  the  pious  Yogi,  so  long  motionless  whilst  gazing 
on  the  sun  that  knotty  plants  encircled  his  neck  and 
the  cast  snake-skin  his  loins,  and  the  birds  built  their 
nests  on  his  shoulders,  this  poet  and  naturalist,  by 
equal  consecration,  became  a  part  of  the  field  and 
forest ;  and  lie  with  his  books,  —  to  read  which  is  like 


THOREAU.  281 

walking  amid  meadows  and  magnolias,  or  in  woods 
melodious  with  nightingales, — might  naturally  be  un 
discovered  in  the  landscape  by  the  great  world  thunder 
ing  past  in  its  train. 

In  the  annals  of  Tours  several  hundred  years  ago 
this  name  recurs  in  connection  with  its  government, 
but  it  was  from  St.  Heliers  in  Jersey  that  the  first 
American  of  that  name  emigrated.  I  remember  well 
the  stolid,  taciturn  pencil-maker  his  father,  and  his 
simple  mother,  and  long  ago  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  great  Thoreau  was  what  the  Buddha  would 
call  a  u  twice-born"  man.  He  was  born  in  Concord, 
and  entered  Harvard  University  in  1833,  the  year  of 
Emerson's  first  visit  to  England.  Emerson  had  been 
residing  in  Concord  two  or  three  years  when  he  dis 
covered  this  scholar,  then  twenty  years  of  age.  The 
family  was  poor,  and  Thoreau  taught  school  a  little 
and  made  pencils  a  little,  but  read  and  thought  a  great 
deal.  At  an  early  period  he  made  up  his  mind  that  his 
road  to  wealth  lay  in  not  wanting  things.  If  he  were 
as  satisfied  not  to  have  a  coach  as  his  neighbour  was 
in  having  one,  was  he  not  quite  as  well  off  as  that 
neighbour?  "  If  I  had  the  wealth  of  Croesus  bestowed 
on  me,"  he  was  at  length  able  to  say,  "  my  aims  must 
still  be  the  same,  and  my  means  the  same." 

Emerson  took  me  to  see  Thoreau,  and  I  remember 
that  he  asked  me  what  we  were  studying  at  Divinity 
College.  I  answered,  "  The  Scriptures."  "Which?'' 
he  asked.  I  was  puzzled  until  Emerson  said,  "  I  fear 
you  will  find  our  Thoreau  a  sad  pagan."  Thoreau  had 
long  been  a  reverent  student  of  Oriental  bibles,  and, 
like  Morgana  in  the  story,  had  marked  all  the  sacred 


282  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

doors  with  the  same  sign,  so  that  Hebrew  were  not  dis 
tinguishable  from  Hindu  inspirations.  He  now  shewed 
me  his  bioles,  translated  from  various  races  into  French 
and  English,  presented  him  by  an  English  friend,  Mr. 
Cholmondeley. 

In  this  conversation  with  Thoreau  I  perceived  that 
he  was  not  in  the  least  like  his  parents,  but  closely 
resembled  Emerson.  His  features,  expression,  tones 
of  voice,  were  more  like  those  of  Emerson  than  any 
likeness  I  have  known  between  brothers.  This  phe 
nomenon  was,  no  doubt,  the  result  of  the  naturalist's 
genius.  Emerson  may  have  thought  of  Thoreau  in  his 
quatrain  — 

"  He  took  the  colour  of  his  vest 
From  rabbit's  coat  and  grouse's  breast; 
For  as  the  wild  kinds  lurk  and  hide, 
So  walks  the  huntsman  unespied." 

But  meanwhile  Thoreau,  while  he  hunted  the  wild  kinds 
with  spyglass  and  microscope,  and  became  friendly  with 
them,  was  pursuing  more  ardently  winged  thoughts  and 
mystical  secrets.  He  cared  most,  as  he  said,  to  "  fish 
in  the  sky,  whose  bottom  is  pebbly  with  stars."  He 
once  said  to  rue  that  he  had  found  in  Emerson  a  world 
where  truths  existed  with  the  same  perfection  as  the 
objects  he  studied  in  external  nature,  his  ideas  real  and 
exact  as  antenna  and  stamina.  It  was  nature  spirit 
ualised.  I  also  found  that  Thoreau  had  entered  deeply 
Emerson's  secret,  and  was  the  most  complete  incar 
nation  of  the  earlier  idealism  of  the  Sage.  But  because 
this  influence  was  in  the  least  part  personal,  the  resem 
blance  of  Thoreau  to  Emerson  was  as  superficial  as  a 


THOREAU.  283 

leaf-like  creature  to  a  leaf.  Thoreau  was  quite  as  orig 
inal  as  Emerson.  He  was  not  an  imitator  of  any  mor 
tal  ;  his  thoughts  and  expressions  are  suggestions  of  a 
Thoreau-principle  at  work  in  the  universe.  A  lady  who 
had  known  Wordsworth  in  her  girlhood  told  me  that  he 
looked  as  if  nature  had  adopted  him,  the  furrows  in  his 
face  as  if  stained  by  lichens  ;  and  I  at  once  thought  of 
Thoreau,  in  whose  eye  was  the  clear  Walden  Water, 
and  on  his  brow  the  peace  of  pastures  and  purity  of 
the  river  lilies,  as  well  as  the  grace  of  Emerson. 

In  1845  Thoreau  built  himself  a  hut  with  his  own 
hands  on  the  shore  of  Walderi,  —  that  lakelet  of  a  mile 
and  three  quarters  circumference,  which  is  a  pure  peren 
nial  spring,  framed  in  a  wood  of  oak  and  pine.  It  is 
without  visible  inlet  or  outlet,  and  so  transparent,  that 
once  when  Thoreau's  axe  fell  into  it,  he  saw  it  at  a 
great  depth  and  recovered  it.  It  was  then  that  social 
istic  experiments  were  rife,  and  Thoreau  would  shew 
that  educated  man  could  build  his  house  and  live  hap 
pily  in  nature  without  impawning  his  hours  or  sacri 
ficing  life  to  the  means  of  living.  The  laud  was  given 
him,  I  believe,  by  Emerson  ;  the  house  cost  him  twenty- 
eight  dollars  twelve  and  a  half  cents ;  and  he  lived 
there,  from  July  4  to  March  1,  at  a  total  expense  of 
sixty-two  dollars,  less  one  mill.  But  I  cannot  help 
suspecting  that  a  perilous  Erl-King's  daughter  lurked 
in  the  beauty  of  Walden  Water,  and  drew  away  the 
life  of  Thoreau.  He  was  not  so  strong  as  his  frame 
suggested  his  right  to  be,  and  died  of  consumption  at 
forty-five. 

But  they  who  read  the  book  that  came  from  that 
Walden  hermitage  will  know  that  by  a  true  estimate 


284  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

Thoreau  lived  very  long.  This  spiritual  Pan  natu 
rally  had  a  flute,  and  he  drew  wild  creatures  to  him 
with  its  music.  A  mouse  became  familiar,  played  bo- 
peep,  and  ate  from  his  hand.  There  was  a  pet  mole 
in  his  cellar.  Of  a  sparrow  that  came  to  sit  on  his 
shoulder  he  was  prouder  than  any  warrior  of  his  epau 
lette.  A  phoebe  built  in  his  shed,  the  robin  in  a  pine 
that  waved  over  his  house,  and  a  partridge  with  her 
brood  fed  beneath  his  window.  A  fox  that  had  been 
attracted  by  the  light  retreated  barking  "  a  vulpine 
curse,"  but  the  owl  said,  "How  der  do  ?  "  He  observes 
them  all  with  the  eye  and  ear  of  a  scientific  Pilpay. 
He  has  a  Darwinian  dream  of  his  own,  though  there  is 
more  of  transmigration  than  evolution  in  it.  "  If  we 
take  the  ages  into  our  account,  may  there  not  be  a 
civilisation  going  on  among  brutes  as  well  as  men? 
They  seem  to  me  to  be  rudimeutal,  burrowing  men, 
still  standing  on  their  defence,  awaiting  their  trans 
formation." 

Over  the  door  of  Thoreau's  cabin  was  written  for 
those  who  could  read  it :  "  Entertainment  for  man,  but 
not  for  beast."  The  beasts  were  welcome  too,  if  they 
did  not  come  in  human  disguise.  Hither  in  the  snows 
came  the  fools  of  ideas,  the  victims  of  crotchets,  the 
running  slave,  —  whom  he  sheltered  on  his  road  to  the 
North  Star,  —  and  also  the  poets  and  philosophers. 
In  Walden  they  are  all  botanised  and  zoologised  upon 
as  precisely  as  their  poor  relations  who  came  on  fins, 
wings,  or  all-fours  ;  from  the  man  of  one  idea  to  the 
intellectual  centipede  ;  from  the  minister  who  spoke  of 
God  as  if  he  "  enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  the  subject,"  to 
the  philosopher  with  whom  he  made  a  new  theory  of 
life  over  a,  convivial  dish  of  gruel. 


THOREAU. 

On  my  first  walk  with  Thoreau  we  started  westward, 
for  he  liked  to  order  his  morning  walk  after  the  move 
ment  of  the  race.  The  sun  is  the  first  western  pioneer ; 
lie  sets  his  Hesperian  fruits  on  the  horizon  to  lure  the 
human  race  ;  therefore  we  will  go  by  Goosepond  to 
Baker's  Farm.  Of  every  acre,  he  contended,  the  west 
ern  side  was  wildest,  therefore  fittest  to  explore.  Ex 
oriente  lux,  ex  Occidents  frux.  This  new  acquaintance 
filled  up  my  idea  of  Julius  Caesar,  such  was  the  cour 
age  and  repose  in  his  countenance.  His  nose  was 
Roman-aquiline,  strong  and  bold,  like  the  prow  of  a 
ship,  above  which  watched  his  wonderful  eye,  that 
seemed  to  reach  a  far  horizon.  His  powers  of  conver 
sation  were  great.  At  every  step  I  was  surprised  and 
delighted  by  his  recognition  of  laws  and  significant 
attributes  in  common  things,  as  a  relation  between 
grasses  and  geologic  characters  beneath  them ;  the 
grouping  of  various  pine-needles,  and  the  effect  of 
their  differences  on  the  sounds  they  yield  when  struck 
by  the  wind;  and  the  "shades"  of  taste,  so  to  say, 
represented  by  different  herbs.  I  cannot  remember 
the  name  of  some  little  herb  he  gave  me  to  taste ;  it 
was  acrid  and  biting,  but  tastes  very  sweet  in  memory 
along  with  his  talk  about  the  resolute  individuality  of 
some  of  these  lowly  organisations. 

Thoreau  had  a  calendar  of  the  plants  and  flowers  of 
the  neighbourhood,  and  would  sometimes  go  a  long 
way  around  to  visit  some  floral  friend  whom  he  had  not 
seen  for  a  year.  On  one  occasion  when  I  was  living  at 
Ponkawtassett  Hill,  he  mentioned  the  hibiscus  beside 
the  river,  —  a  rare  flower  in  New  England,  —  and 
when  I  desired  to  see  it,  told  me  it  would  be  open 


286  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

"  about  Monday,  and  not  stay  long."  I  went  on  Tues 
day  afternoon  and  was  a  day  too  late  —  the  petals  lay 
on  the  ground. 

Though  shy  of  general  society,  Thoreau  was  a  hero 
among  children  and  the  captain  of  their  excursions. 
He  was  captain  of  the  Concord  huckleberry  party, 
which  was  an  institution.  To  have  Thoreau  along 
with  us  was  to  be  sure  of  finding  acres  of  bushes  laden 
with  the  delicious  fruit.  On  these  occasions  his  talk 
with  the  children  was  as  a  part  of  the  spirit  and  cir 
cumstance  which  go  to  make  up  what  is  called  in 
American  phrase  "a  good  time."  A  child  stumbles 
and  falls,  losing  his  carefully  gathered  store  of  berries  ; 
Thoreau  kneels  beside  the  weeping  unfortunate,  and 
explains  to  him  and  the  pitying  group  that  nature  has 
made  these  little  provisions  for  next  year's  crop.  If 
there  were  no  obstacles,  and  little  boys  did  not  fall  oc 
casionally,  how  would  berries  be  scattered  and  planted? 
and  what  would  become  of  huckleberryings  ?  He  will 
then  arrange  that  he  who  has  thus  suffered  for  the 
general  good  shall  have  the  first  chance  at  the  next 
pasture. 

Sometimes  I  have  gome  with  Thoreau  and  his  young 
comrades  for  an  expedition  on  the  river.  Upon  such 
excursions  his  resources  for  our  entertainment  were 
inexhaustible.  He  would  tell  stories  of  the  Indians 
who  once  dwelt  thereabout,  until  the  children  almost 
looked  to  see  a  red  man  skulking  with  his  arrow  on 
shore ;  and  every  plant  or  flower  on  the  bank  or  in  the 
water,  and  every  fish,  turtle,  frog,  lizard  about  us  was 
transformed  by  the  wand  of  his  knowledge  from  the 
low  form  into  which  the  spell  of  our  ignorance  had 


THOREAU.  287 

reduced  its  princely  beauty.  One  of  his  surprises  was 
to  thrust  his  hand  softly  into  the  water,  and  raise  up 
before  our  astonished  eyes  a  bright  fish  which  lay  in 
his  hand  as  if  they  were  old  acquaintances  !  If  the 
fish  had  also  dropped  a  penny  from  its  mouth,  it  could 
not  have  been  a  more  miraculous  proceeding  to  us. 
The  entire  crew  bared  their  arms  and  tried  to  get  hold 
of  a  fish,  but  only  our  captain  succeeded.  We  could 
not  get  his  secret  from  him  then,  for  it  was  to  surprise 
and  delight  many  another  merry  boat-full ;  but  later  I 
have  read  in  his  account  of  the  bream  or  ruff  (Pomotis 
vulgaris)  of  that  river,  that  it  is  a  simple  and  inoffen 
sive  fish,  whose  nests  are  visible  all  along  the  shore, 
hollowed  in  the  sand,  over  which  it  is  steadily  poised 
through  the  summer  hours  on  waving  fin.  "  The 
breams  are  so  careful  of  their  charge,  that  you  may 
stand  close  by  in  the  water  and  examine  them  at  your 
leisure.  I  have  thus  stood  over  them  half  an  hour  at  a 
time,  and  stroked  them  familiarly  without  frightening 
them  :  suffering  them  to  nibble  my  fingers  harmlessly  ; 
and  seen  them  erect  their  dorsal  fins  in  anger  when 
my  hand  approached  their  ova ;  and  have  even  taken 
them  gently  out  of  the  water  with  my  hand." 

Thoreau  had  taken  deeply  to  heart  the  one  thing 
needful  for  a  soul  born  within  sound  of  "  Concor- 
dia,"  —  that  the  time  and  place  were  cosmical.  Mar 
garet  Fuller  was  inclined  to  rebuke  this  before  she 
had  learned  by  sad  experience  how  much  truth  lay 
in  his  humourous  motto,  Ne  quid  qucesiveris  extra  te 
Concordiamque.  Emerson  relates  that  he  returned 
"  Kane's  Arctic  Voyage  "  to  a  friend  with  the  remark, 
that  "  most  of  the  phenomena  noted  might  be  observed 


288  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

in  Concord !  "  He  seemed  a  little  envious  of  the 
Pole  for  the  coincident  sunrise  and  sunset,  or  five 
minutes'  day  after  six  months,  a  splendid  fact  which 
Annursune  had  never  afforded  him.  He  found  red 
snow  in  one  of  his  walks  near  Concord,  and  was 
hoping  one  day  to  find  the  Victoria  Regia.  He  re 
ported  to  Emerson  somewhat  triumphantly  that  the 
foreign  savants  had  failed  to  discriminate  a  particu 
lar  botanical  variety.  "  That  is  to  say,"  replied  Em 
erson,  "the  blockheads  were  not  born  in  Concord; 
but  who  said  they  were?  It  was  their  unspeakable 
misfortune  to  be  born  in  London,  or  Paris,  or  Rome ; 
but,  poor  fellows !  they  did  what  they  could,  consid 
ering  that  they  never  saw  Bateman's  Pond,  or  Nine- 
Acre  Corner,  or  Becky  Stow's  Swamp.  Besides,  what 
were  you  sent  into  the  world  for  but  to  add  this  obser 
vation?"  He  would  not  read  the  newspapers,  which 
demanded  his  attention  most  impertinently  for  Europe 
or  Washington  instead  of  Walden  Pond.  One  of  his 
beatitudes  ran  —  ' '  Blessed  are  the  young,  for  they  do 
not  read  the  President's  Message."  Of  friends  who 
read  to  him  of  the  Crimean  war  he  asks,  "  Pray,  to  be 
serious,  where  is  Sevastopol?  Who  is  Menchikoff?" 
and  goes  on  to  meditate  on  the  white  oak  in  his 
stove. 

Thoreau  was  so  resolute  in  his  anti-slavery  princi 
ples  that  he  refused  to  pay  taxes  which  might  be  used 
for  the  enormities  of  a  Pro-slavery  Government,  and 
for  this  went  to  prison,  of  which  he  wrote  an  account 
that  makes  it  all  look  now  like  a  little  comedy  got  up 
between  him  and  the  authorities.  I  remember  on  an 
occasion  he  addressed  an  anti-slavery  meeting  and 


THOREAU.  289 

said,  "  You  have  my  sympathy  ;  it  is  all  I  have  to  give 
you,  but  you  will  find  it  important  to  you."  This 
transcendental  remark  impressed  some  who  heard  it  as 
egotistical,  but  they  discovered  ere  long  that  to  have 
with  them  such  impartial  and  solitary  thinkers  and 
scholars  as  Thoreau  meant  a  force  which  partisans 
could  not  resist.  He  remembered  with  satisfaction 
that  he  rang  the  town- bell  in  1844,  when  Emerson  de 
livered  his  great  anti-slavery  address  ;  now  audible  as 
u  Concordia  "  sounding  a  first  note  in  the  chimes  of 
liberty. 

Thoreau  was  a  profoundly  religious  man,  and  I  fear 
it  must  be  confessed  that  it  was  due  to  this  that,  in  the 
absence  of  resources  to  win  popularity,  he  could  never 
gain  an  audience  in  the  country,  and  readily  adapted 
himself  to  obscurity.  Of  course,  if  he  had  been  super 
ficially  religious  it  would  have  been  another  thing ;  but 
he  was  convinced  that  the  only  way  to  understand 
Christ  was  to  get  rid  of  Christianity,  and  that  theology 
was  the  only  blasphemy.  His  articles  were  repeatedly 
refused  by  papers  and  magazines  because  he  would  in 
terpolate  sentences  of  this  kind  in  them.  Emerson 
told  me  one  day  that  an  editor  had  begged  him  to  per 
suade  Thoreau  to  write  him  an  article  containing  no 
allusion  to  "  God."  How  can  I  better  shew  the  relig 
iousness  of  this  noble  nature  or  close  this  little  sketch 
than  by  reporting  his  answer  to  one  who  approached 
him  on  his  death-bed  to  speak  of  a  future  life?  Tho 
reau  simply  said  —  u  One  world  at  a  time." 


290  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 


XXYI. 

"THE   COMING  MAN." 

THIS  phrase  became  the  cant  of  tabernacle-builders 
in  the  transcendental  movement,  and  passed 
away  with  their  tabernacles  —  why  they  never  knew, 
for  their  eyes  were  heavy  under  the  splendour  of  the 
transfiguration  before  them ;  but,  in  reality,  the  man 
had  come,  only  with  heart  matched  with  the  need  of  a 
world,  by  no  means  with  the  need  of  any  socialist  or 
other  sect  striving  to  grow  amid  ruins  imported  from 
the  past,  or  imitations  of  them. 

At  Paris,  on  the  opening  of  the  International  Expo 
sition  of  1867,  I  found  many  Americans  ashamed  of 
the  poor  display  made  by  their  country.  The  depart 
ment  seemed  a  wilderness,  broken  only  by  a  few  un 
opened  boxes  that  promised  little.  But  I  could  not 
share  their  chagrin.  Indeed,  I  was  rather  glad  to  have 
my  countrymen  taught,  even  at  cost  of  some  humilia 
tion,  that  Protectionists  cannot  change  the  order  of  the 
world  nor  make  America  excel  in  works  that  can  be 
done  better  and  more  cheaply  elsewhere.  Not  for  fine 
cloths  and  cutlery  would  I  see  duplicates  of  Sheffield, 
of  Manchester,  and  the  Black  Country  in  America. 
Let  the  banner  of  stars  float  over  empty  spaces  in  exhi 
bitions  until  it  can  wave  over  original  products  instead 


291 


of  facsimiles,  which  only  divert  hands  that  might  be 
developing  new  resources.  Let  Europe  make  our 
knives  and  boots,  and  welcome.  Yet  America  was 
not  unrepresented  at  Paris.  At  the  end  of  the  sec 
tion  were  Bierstadt's  picture  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
Church's  Niagara,  and  close  to  these  a  fine  portrait  of 
Emerson,  and  I  felt  that  this  group  of  physical  gran 
deurs,  and  the  best  head  to  match  them,  constituted 
the  fair  symbol  and  true  exposition  of  that  splendid 
possibility  which  America  is. 

I  do  not  know  exactly  when  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 
wrote  his  tale  "The  Great  Stone  Face,"  but  it  was 
amid  much  talk  about  the  Coming  Man,  and  probably 
when  he  recognised  the  Man  Come,  who  visited  Blithe- 
dale  when  he  was  there.  The  suggestion,  no  doubt, 
came  from  the  Profile  Mountain  of  New  Hampshire.  I 
remember  a  vacation  ramble  with  fellow-students  when 
this  wonderful  profile  came  in  view.  One  cried,  "  It 
is  the  face  of  Carlyle  ! "  That  face  was  familiar  to  us 
all  by  portraits,  and  the  resemblance  was  unmistak 
able.  The  jutting  brow,  the  strong  underface,  the  deli 
cate  mouth,  are  all  there ;  and,  above  all,  the  pathetic 
look,  as  of  a  world  pain,  was  in  this  great  stone  face, 
gazing  out  above  the  lower  earth  to  a  far  horizon,  as 
if  waiting  for  a  star  not  yet  risen  to  relieve  its  weary 
watch  of  ages. 

This  "  Old  Man  of  the  Mountains,"  as  the  peasants 
call  it,  requires  a  long  perspective.  They  who  have 
travelled  towards  it  have  found  it  vanishing  at  their 
approach,  and  have  reached  at  last  a  few  acres  of  rug 
ged  and  blanched  desolation.  Carlyle,  too,  as  we 
have  seen,  cannot  be  approached  too  closely ;  even 


292  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

now  we  are  beholding  the  blanched  and  jagged  points 
into  which  he  has  been  resolved.  A  farther  perspective 
will  again  restore  the  majestic  face,  but  it  will  always 
be  that  of  a  genius  fettered  in  the  Puritan  creed,  from 
whose  stony  side  he  could  only  gaze  above  and  beyond 
the  laughing  plains  of  human  life  to  Titans  bound  on 
summits  like  his  own.  Emerson,  beginning  a  new  race 
of  Titans,  had  recognised  this  lonely  face  in  the  High 
lands  of  Scotland,  and  had  sailed  the  sea  like  Herakles 
when  he  went  to  unbind  Prometheus.  There  was  good 
reason  why  he  should  first  recognise  the  pain  in  that 
face,  for  it  was  akin  to  the  intellectual  despair  in  Amer 
ica  also. 

In  Hawthorne's  tale  the  country  boy  gazes  upon  the 
Great  Stone  Face,  seeing  in  it  the  unfading  light  of  a 
prophecy  that  "  The  Coming  Man,"  of  which  so  much 
was  said,  is  to  resemble  it ;  he  loves  and  almost  wor 
ships  the  Face,  and  whenever  any  famous  personage 
comes  into  his  region  he  hastens  to  gaze  upon  him, 
hoping  to  discover  a  likeness  to  the  Face.  He  has  to 
turn  away  sorrowful  from  the  applauded  general  or 
president,  until  at  last  he  is  astounded  to  find  himself 
hailed,  despite  his  protest,  as  antitype  of  the  Great 
Stone  Face  —  the  Coming  Man  ! 

Hawthorne's  tale  told  truer  than  even  his  subtle 
power  of  divination  could  have  imagined  when  he  wrote 
it.  On  the  great  stone  face  of  Puritanism  Emerson  had 
gazed  till  he  saw  the  pain  and  pathos  in  it,  and  the 
prophecy  in  its  look  towards  the  far  horizon  ;  its  moun 
tain  risen  from  volcanic  depths  now  cold,  its  summit 
clouded  with  scepticism,  commanded  yet  this  one 
vision  of  a  new  faith,  real  as  that  which  drew  scholars 


"THE    COMING   MAN."  293 

and  tender  women  from  their  English  universities  and 
homes  to  the  savage  shores  of  New  England  ;  and  Em 
erson,  who  had  sought  the  new  word  near  and  far, 
from  the  lecture-room  of  Everett  and  church  of  Chan- 
ning  to  the  hermitage  of  Wordsworth  and  Carlyle,  was 
surprised  in  his  own  solitude  by  the  youth  of  America 
hailing  him  as  their  prophet. 

The  political  and  social  independence  which  Puritan 
ism  sailed  across  the  sea  to  maintain,  then  surrendered 
to  the  Presbyter  or  "  Priest  writ  large  ;"  the  intellect 
ual  liberty  which  Unitarianism  affirmed,  then  denied  to 
those  who  passed  by  its  own  transubstantiatious  of  the 
dogmas  ;  these  were  made  real  by  Emerson.  Under 
his  spirit,  as  if  under  a  tropical  breath,  arose  strange 
spiritual  fauna  and  flora ;  he  did  not  tolerate  but  re 
joiced  in  them.  With  the  divine  impartiality  of  the 
earth  he  nourished  every  variety  of  thought  and  aim 
from  his  great  heart. 

In  "The  White  Lotus"  Buddha  teaches:  "The 
rays  of  intelligence  make  the  order  of  venerable 
teachers.  They  are  all  and  equally  born  to  unite 
science  and  virtue.  The  Great  Repose  results  from  the 
comprehension  of  the  equality  of  all  laws  ;  there  is 
only  one,  not  two  or  three.  I  explain  the  law  to  all 
creatures,  after  having  recognised  their  inclinations. 
It  is  as  a  cloud  with  a  garland  of  lightning  spreads  joy 
on  the  earth ;  the  water  falls  on  all  creatures,  herbs, 
bushes,  trees,  and  each  pumps  up  to  its  own  leaf  and 
blossom  what  it  requires  for  its  several  end.  So  falls 
the  rain  of  the  law  upon  the  many-hearted  world.  The 
law  is  for  millions  ;  but  it  is  one  and  alike  beautiful  to 
all  —  it  is  deliverance  and  repose." 


294  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

Let  my  reader  compare  with  this  strain  of  the  East 
ern  this  of  the  Western  seer,  from  the  "  Dial :  "  — 

"  No  one  can  converse  much  with  different  classes 
of  society  in  New  England  without  remarking  the 
progress  of  a  revolution.  Those  who  share  in  it  have 
no  external  organisation,  no  badge,  no  creed,  no  name. 
They  do  not  vote,  or  print,  or  even  meet  together. 
They  do  not  know  each  other's  faces  or  names.  .  .  . 
This  spirit  of  the  time  is  felt  by  every  individual,  with 
some  difference  —  to  each  one  casting  its  light  upon  the 
objects  nearest  to  his  temper  and  habits  of  thought  — 
to  one  coming  in  the  shape  of  special  reforms  in  the 
state ;  to  another,  in  modification  of  the  various  call 
ings  of  men  and  the  customs  of  business  ;  to  a  third, 
opening  a  new  scope  for  literature  and  art ;  to  a  fourth, 
in  philosophical  insight ;  to  a  fifth,  in  the  vast  solitudes 
of  prayer.  It  is  in  every  form  a  protest  against  usage 
and  a  search  for  principles.  .  .  .  It  has  a  step  of  Fate, 
and  goes  on  existing  like  an  oak  or  a  river,  because  it 
must," 

For  this  beautiful  work  Emerson  was  in  every  way 
furnished  with  ability.  On  this  point,  however,  I 
shall  here  quote  Margaret  Fuller's  account  of  his  lec 
turing. 

"  The  audience  that  waited  for  years  upon  the  lec 
tures  was  never  large,  but  it  was  select  and  it  was  con 
stant.  Among  the  hearers  were  some  who,  though, 
attracted  by  the  beauty  of  character  and  manner,  they 
were  willing  to  hear  the  speaker  through,  yet  always 
went  away  discontented.  They  were  accustomed  to 
an  artificial  method,  whose  scaffolding  could  easily  Jbe 
retraced,  and  desired  an  obvious  sequence  of  logical 


"  THE   COMING   MAN."  295 

influences.  They  insisted  there  was  nothing  in  that 
which  they  heard,  because  they  could  not  give  a  clear 
account  of  its  course  and  purport.  They  did  not  see 
that  Pindar's  odes  might  be  very  well  arranged  for  their 
own  purpose,  and  yet  not  bear  translating  into  the 
methods  of  Mr.  Locke.  Others  were  content  to  be 
benefited  by  a  good  influence  without  a  strict  analysis 
of  its  means.  '  My  wife  says  it  is  about  the  elevation 
of  human  nature,  and  so  it  seems  to  me/  was  a  fit 
reply  to  some  of  the  critics.  Many  were  satisfied  to 
find  themselves  excited  to  congenial  thought  and  nobler 
life  without  an  exact  catalogue  of  the  thoughts  of  the 
speaker.  Those  who  believed  no  truth  could  exist 
unless  encased  by  the  burrs  of  opinion,  went  away 
utterly  baffled.  Sometimes  they  thought  he  was  on 
their  side  ;  then  presently  would  come  something  on 
the  other.  He  really  seemed  to  believe  there  were  two 
sides  to  every  subject,  and  even  to  intimate  higher 
ground,  from  which  each  might  be  seen  to  have  an  in 
finite  number  of  sides  or  bearings  —  an  impertinence 
not  to  be  endured  !  The  partisan  heard  but  once  and 
returned  no  more.  But  some  there  were  —  simple 
souls  —  whose  life  had  been,  perhaps,  without  clear 
light,  yet  still  a  search  after  truth  for  its  own  sake, 
who  were  able  to  receive  what  followed  on  the  sugges 
tion  of  a  subject  in  a  natural  manner  as  a  stream  of 
thought.  These  recognised  beneath  the  veil  of  words 
the  still  small  voice  of  conscience,  the  vestal  fires  of 
lone  religious  hours,  and  the  mild  teachings  of  the 
summer  woods. 

"The  charm  of  the  elocution,. too,  was  great.     His 
general  manner  was  that  of  the  reader,  occasionally 


29 ()  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

rising  into  direct  address  or  invocation  in  passages 
where  tenderness  or  majesty  demanded  more  energy. 
At  such  times  both  eye  and  voice  called  on  a  remote 
future  to  give  a  worthy  reply  —  a  future  which  shall 
manifest  more  largely  the  universal  soul  as  it  was  then 
manifest  to  this  soul.  The  tone  of  the  voice  was  a 
grave  body-tone,  full  and  sweet  rather  than  sonorous, 
yet  flexible  and  haunted  by  many  modulations,  as  even 
instruments  of  wood  and  brass  seem  to  become  after 
they  have  been  long  pla}~ed  on  with  skill  and  taste ; 
how  much  more  so  the  human  voice  !  In  the  most 
expressive  passages  it  uttered  notes  of  silvery  clear 
ness,  winning,  yet  still  more  commanding.  The  words 
uttered  in  those  tones  floated  a  while  above  us,  then 
took  root  in  the  memory  like  winged  seed. 

u  In  the  union  of  an  even  rustic  plainness  with  lyric 
inspiration,  religious  dignity  with  philosophic  calmness, 
keen  sagacity  in  details  with  boldness  of  view,  we  saw 
what  brought  to  mind  the  early  poets  and  legislators  of 
Greece  —  men  who  taught  their  fellows  to  plough  and 
avoid  moral  evil,  sing  hymns  to  the  gods  and  watch  the 
metamorphosis  of  nature.  Here  in  civic  Boston  was 
such  a  man  —  one  who  could  see  man  in  his  original 
grandeur  and  his  original  childishness,  rooted  in  simple 
nature,  raising  to  the  heavens  the  brow  and  eye  of  a 
poet." 

When  Emerson's  fame  among  his  few  first  friends, 
extended  only  by  the  noisy  resentment  of  theologians, 
had  drawn  "respectable"  Boston  to  hear  his  early  lec 
tures,  he  had  sometimes  to  speak  to  audiences  that  had 
not  yet  ears  to  hear  him.  The  poet  Longfellow,  who 
attended  a  course  given  in  Boston  on  Human  Culture, 


"THE    COMING   MAN."  297 

said  to  me  that  it  was  better  than  a  play  to  observe  the 
mass  of  the  audience.  Things,  he  said,  had  so  long 
gone  on  in  their  old  mill-round  in  Boston,  that  the 
report  of  something  new,  and  of  a  preacher  who 
wouldn't  administer  the  sacraments,  drew  as  many  as 
would  have  come  to  see  a  live  mermaid  combing  her 
hair  with  a  shell.  When  he  began,  an  awful  silence 
prevailed  ;  every  eye  was  lit  up  with  expectation,  every 
head  inclined  forward.  This  was  at  eight  o'clock  ;  at 
ten  minutes  past,  a  kind  of  despair  began  to  appear  on 
each  face,  though  still  inclined  forward,  and  a  ray  of 
hope  that  something  would  yet  be  understood  still  vis 
ible  in  the  eye  ;  twenty  minutes  past,  the  heads  fallen 
a  little  back  ;  half-past,  bodies  returned  to  comfortable 
postures,  but  eyes  lowered  with  a  sense  of  their  little 
ness  ;  forty  minutes  past,  it  was  as  if  some  one  had 
gone  round  and  turned  off  the  light  of  every  coun 
tenance  ;  the  last  ten  minutes  was  a  time  of  general 
and  profound  repose,  amid  which  three  or  four  faces 
could  be  seen  kindled  to  ecstasy. 

But  the  three  or  four  kindled  ones  that  Longfellow 
saw  in  the  heavy-eyed  crowd  steadily  and  swiftly  mul 
tiplied.  And  they  who  came  to  his  foiitless  baptism 
were  never  made  Emersonians.  The  new  literary  age 
which  dates  from  Emerson  has  produced  works  which 
could  not  have  appeared  if  he  had  not  lived  ;  and  no 
doubt  in  some  of  them  thoughts  or  even  phrases  of  his 
may  be  found ;  but  these  are  exceptional  enough  to 
prove  the  rule  to  be  the  reverse.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  cite  from  any  generation  authors  so  various  in  aim 
and  style  as  those  whose  minds  have  been  personally 
and  strongly  influenced  by  Emerson. 


298  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

I  recall  the  vigorous  way  in  which  Emerson,  warning 
parents  against  what  he  quaintly  called  disobedience 
to  children,  said  in  a  lecture,  "Get  off  that  child! 
You  are  trying  to  make  that  man  another  you.  One  is 
enough."  The  patriarch  of  Concord  never  made  that 
blunder  in  the  world  he  created. 

This  principle  lay  so  deep  in  Emerson,  and  so  per 
vaded  his  influence,  that  his  voice  was  ultimately  heard 
calming  the  angry  elements  even  of  theology.  He  was 
once  denning  eloquence,  and  said  that  it  was  a  power 
which  could  soothe  and  calm  a  company  on  a  ship 
foundered  in  mid-Atlantic.  Looking  back  upon  his 
work,  the  thinkers  and  scholars  of  America  would 
surely  consent  to  this  as  a  true  illustration  of  what  the 
voice  of  Emerson  has  done  among  those  who  were 
panic-stricken  at  the  wreck  of  another  kind  of  ship. 
Theological  polemics  are  hopelessly  vulgarised,  and 
whatever  shall  follow  the  foundered  faith,  it  will  surely 
be  catholic. 


THE    PYTHON.  299 


XXVIT. 

THE    PYTHON. 

I  ^  MERSON  was  the  first  American  scholar  to  cast 
1  A  a  dart  at  slavery.  On  Sunday,  May  29,  1831, 
he  admitted  an  abolitionist  to  lecture  on  the  subject 
in  his  church,  and  in  the  following  year  another 
was  invited  to  his  pulpit.  The  dates  are  important. 
This  was  six  years  before  even  Channing  had  commit 
ted  himself  to  that  side.  Garrison  was  at  that  time 
regarded  as  a  vulgar  street-preacher  of  notions  too 
wild  to  excite  more  than  a  smile.  The  despised  group 
of  Boston  Common  was  first  sheltered  by  Emerson, 
and  this  action  was  the  more  significant  because  he  was 
chaplain  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  which 
could  hardly  have  contained  one  anti-slavery  member. 
Emerson  first  drew  the  sympathy  of  scholars  to  that 
side.  The  voices  of  the  two  popular  orators,  Channing 
and  Phillips,  soon  followed,  and  Longfellow  began  to 
write  the  anti-slavery  poems  collected  in  1842. 

When,  in  1835,  Harriet  Martineau  was  nearly 
mobbed  in  Boston,  and  nq  prominent  citizen  ventured 
to  her  side,  Emerson  and  his  brother  Charles  hastened 
to  her  defence.  "  At  the  time  of  the  hubbub  against 
me  in  Boston,"  she  wrote,  "Charles  Emerson  stood 
alone  in  a  large  company  in  defence  of  the  right  of 


300  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

free  thought  and  speech,  and  declared  that  he  had 
rather  see  Boston  in  ashes  than  that  I  or  anybody  else 
should  be  debarred  in  any  way  from  perfectly  free 
speech.  His  brother  Waldo  invited  me  to  be  his  guest 
in  the  midst  of  my  unpopularity." 

On  November  7,  1837,  the  Rev.  E.  P.  Lovejoy,  an 
abolitionist,  was  shot  by  a  mob  at  Alton,  Illinois, 
while  attempting  to  defend  his  printing-press  from  de 
struction.  Some  citizens  of  Boston,  headed  by  Dr. 
Channing,  petitioned  the  mayor  of  that  city  for  per 
mission  to  hold  a  meeting  in  Faneuil  Hall,  "the 
Cradle  of  Liberty,"  and  it  was  refused.  The  Attorney- 
General  of  Massachusetts  said  that  Lovejoy  had  "  died 
as  the  fool  clieth,"  and  such  was  the  general  opinion  of 
"respectability."  In  a  lecture  on  Heroism,  Emerson 
said,  "  Whoso  is  heroic  will  always  find  crises  to  try 
his  edge.  Human  virtue  demands  her  champions  and 
martyrs,  and  the  trial  of  persecution  always  proceeds. 
It  is  .but  the  other  day  that  the  brave  Lovejoy  gave  his 
breast  to  the  bullets  of  a  mob  for  the  right  of  free 
speech  and  opinion,  and  died  when  it  was  better  not  to 
live."  George  Bradford  says  that  some  of  Emerson's 
friends  "felt  the  sort  of  cold  shudder  which  ran 
through  the  audience  at  this  calm  braving  of  the  cur 
rent  opinion."  The  audience  had  been  "  carried  on 
and  lifted  up  "  by  the  speaker's  celebrations  of  hero 
ism  in  other  lands  and  ancient  times,  but  when  he  rec 
ognised  a  hero  in  the  lynched  abolitionist,  they  "  were 
wholly  unprepared  for  this  unexpected  turn  and 
shock  ;  "  and  Emerson's  friends  were  in  terror. 

Emerson  could  not  throw  himself  into  any  organisa 
tion,  uor  did  he  encourage  the  scholars  around  him 


THE    PYTHON.  301 

to  do  so  ;  he  believed  that  to  elevate  character,  to 
raise  the  ethical  standard,  to  inspire  courage  in  the  in 
tellect  of  the  nation,  would  speedily  make  its  atmos 
phere  too  pure  for  a  slave  to  breathe.  He  even  re 
sented  the  peremptory  demand  of  the  abolitionists  that 
every  kind  of  work  should  be  postponed  to  their  cause. 
Fearless  in  vindicating  those  whose  convictions  led 
them  to  enlist  for  this  particular  struggle,  Emerson 
saw  in  slavery  one  among  many  symptoms  of  the 
moral  disease  of  the  time.  "  The  timidity  of  our  pub 
lic  opinion  is  our  disease,  or,  shall  I  say,  the  absence 
of  private  opinion.  Good  nature  is  plentiful,  but  we 
want  justice  with  heart  of  steel  to  fight  down  the  proud. 
The  private  mind  has  the  access  to  the  totality  of  good 
ness  and  truth,  that  it  may  be  a  balance  to  a  corrupt 
society,  and  to  stand  for  the  private  verdict  against 
popular  clamour  is  the  office  of  the  noble.  If  a  hu 
mane  measure  is  propounded  in  behalf  of  the  slave,  or 
of  the  Irishman,  or  of  the  Catholic,  or  for  the  succour 
of  the  poor,  that  sentiment,  that  project,  will  have  the 
homage  of  the  hero.  That  is  his  nobility,  his  oath  of 
knighthood,  to  succour  the  helpless  and  oppressed ; 
always  to  throw  himself  on  the  side  of  weakness,  of 
youth,  of  hope,  on  the  liberal,  on  the  expansive  side, 
never  on  the  conserving,  the  timorous,  the  lock-and- 
bolt  system.  More  than  our  good-will  we  may  not  be 
able  to  give.  We  have  our  own  affairs,  our  own 
genius,  which  chains  us  to  our  proper  work.  We  can 
not  give  our  life  to  the  cause  of  the  debtor,  of  the 
slave,  or  the  pauper,  as  another  is  doing ;  but  to  one 
thing  we  are  bound,  not  to  blaspheme  the  sentiment 
and  the  work  of  that  inau,  nor  to  throw  stumbling- 


302  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

blocks  in  the  way  of  the  abolitionist,  the  philanthro 
pist,  as  the  organs  of  influence  and  opinion  are  swift 
to  do." 

Emerson  had  as  much  practical  sagacity  as  genius ; 
when  he  spoke  the  words  just  quoted  (in  a  lecture  in 
Boston,  February  7,  1844)  he  had  reached  a  command 
ing  position,  carrying  with  it  gravest  responsibilities  ; 
the  destinies  of  best  young  men  and  women  were  de 
termined  by  his  word.  But  in  this  early  anti-slavery 
movement  he  did  more  than  he  exacted  from  others, 
and  recognised  it  as  a  far  more  important  reform  than 
others.  In  1844,  when  coloured  citizens  of  Massa 
chusetts  had  been  taken  to  prison  from  ships  in  South 
ern  ports,  Emerson  delivered  an  oration  in  Concord  on 
the  anniversary  of  West  Indian  emancipation,  and 
spoke  sternly  on  the  matter.  "If  such  a  damnable 
outrage  can  be  committed  on  the  person  of  a  citizen 
with  impunity,  let  the  Governor  break  the  broad  seal  of 
the  State  ;  he  bears  the  sword  in  vain.  The  Governor 
of  Massachusetts  is  a  trifler  ;  the  State-house  in  Boston 
is  a  playhouse ;  the  General  Court  is  a  dishonoured 
body,  if  they  make  laws  which  they  cannot  execute. 
The  great-hearted  Puritans  have  left  no  posterity." 
He  demanded  that  the  representatives  of  the  State 
should  demand  of  Congress  the  instant  release,  by 
force  if  necessary,  of  the  imprisoned  negro  seamen, 
and  their  indemnification.  "  As  for  dangers  to  the 
Union  from  such  demands,  the  Union  is  already  at  an 
end  when  the  first  citizen  of  Massachusetts  is  thus 
outraged." 

This  address,  in  which  the  heroic  story  of  West  In 
dian  emancipation  was  told  in  simplest  words  and 


THE    PYTHON.  303 

with  thrilling  effect,  and  the  lesson  plainly  applied  to 
America,  became  of  historic  importance.  Thoreau 
always  remembered  with  pleasure  that  he  rang  the  bell 
which  summoned  the  people  to  the  town-hall  that  day, 
where  the  representatives  of  thirteen  towns  assembled. 
In  a  contemporary  paragraph  in  the  "  Herald  of  Free 
dom"  its  effect  upon  the  abolitionists  is  indicated. 
"  Imagine  a  face  expressive  alike  of  great  intellectual 
power  and  sweetness  of  nature  ;  eyes  which  at  times 
seem  to  look  into  another  world  with  far-seeing  and 
prophetic  ken ;  a  mouth  of  chiselled  beauty  which 
never  speaks  but  to  utter  the  most  melodious,  the 
most  exquisite  intonations  of  which  the  English  lan 
guage  is  capable.  Behold  the  speaker  before  you. 
He  appears  for  the  first  time  on  the  anti-slavery  plat 
form.  You  expect  that  he  will  look  at  his  subject 
from  an  intellectual  point  of  view  merely ;  that  he 
will  give  an  impartial  judgment  on  the  merits  and  the 
faults  of  abolitionism,  and  stand  on  a  clear  eminence 
above  the  dust  and  turmoil  of  the  movement.  But 
not  so.  Behold  he  has  descended  among  us.  He 
grasps  our  hands  with  warm  and  earnest  pressure,  and 
says,  '  Brothers,  I  have  come  to  enter  with  you  into 
this  holy  war.  My  arm  and  my  heart  are  yours,  and 
here  do  I  pledge  myself  henceforth  to  do  battle  in 
your  cause  till  you  have  gained  the  victory.'  I  wish  I 
could  picture  to  you  the  audience  as  it  listened  in  rapt 
and  breathless  attention  to  the  speaker  as  he  detailed 
the  progress  of  British  emancipation  from  its  com 
mencement  to  its  close,  and  then  contrasted  the  noble 
course  of  British  statesmen  with  that  of  their  descend 
ants  in  our  own  country,  and  branded  the  latter  with 


304  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

its  deserved  meed  of  reproach  and  contempt.  As  he 
pictured  the  infinite  wrongs  of  the  coloured  man  and 
his  godlike  patience,  our  hearts  swayed  to  and  fro  at 
his  bidding,  and  tears  found  their  way  down  the 
cheeks  of  sturdy  men  as  well  as  of  tender-hearted 
maidens.  When  the  last  word  was  spoken  its  music 
still  lingered  in  our  ears,  and  silence  alone  seemed  a 
fitting  expression  of  our  deep  and  absorbing  delight. 
The  faint  clapping  of  hands,  which  a  few  attempted, 
died  away  immediately  as  inappropriate  to  the  occa 
sion." 

Probably  it  was  this  brave  note  coming  from  the 
first  battlefield  of  American  independence  which  led 
the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  to  select  the  Hon. 
Samuel  Hoar,  Emerson's  friend  and  neighbour,  to  re 
pair  to  South  Carolina  in  order  to  institute  proceed 
ings  for  the  release  of  the  coloured  seamen,  on  which 
the  Legislature  had  resolved.  Mr.  Hoar  and  his 
daughter,  who  had  been  betrothed  to  Charles  Emer 
son,  proceeded  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  from 
which  place  they  were  driven  after  repeated  threats  of 
violence.  This  incident  produced  much  effect  on 
Emerson's  mind,  but  it  could  not  swerve  him  from  his 
method.  "  Let  us  withhold  every  reproachful,  and,  if 
we  can,  every  indignant  remark.  In  this  cause  we 
must  renounce  our  temper  and  the  risings  of  pride. 
If  there  be  any  man  who  thinks  the  ruin  of  a  race  of 
men  a  small  matter  compared  with  the  last  decorations 
and  completions  of  his  own  comfort,  who  would  not 
so  much  as  part  with  his  ice-cream  to  save  them  from 
rapine  and  manacles,  I  think  I  must  not  hesitate  to 
satisfy  that  man  that  also  his  cream  and  vanilla  are 


THE    PYTHOX.  305 

safer  and  cheaper  oy  placing  the  negro  nation  on  a  fail- 
footing  than  by  robbing  them.  If  the  Virginian  piques 
himself  on  the  picturesque  luxury  of  his  vassalage,  on 
the  heavy  Ethiopian  manners  of  his  house-servants, 
their  silent  obedience,  their  hue  of  bronze,  their  tur- 
baned  heads,  and  would  not  exchange  them  for  the 
more  intelligent  but  precarious  hired  services  of 
whites,  I  shall  not  refuse  to  shew  him  that  when 
their  free  papers  are  made  out  it  will  still  be  their  in 
terest  to  remain  on  his  estates,  and  that  the  oldest 
planters  of  Jamaica  are  convinced  that  it  is  cheaper  to 
pay  wages  than  to  own  slaves." 

The  nearest  thing  to  hero-worship  that  had  ever 
been  awakened  in  Emerson's  breast  probably  was  his 
early  admiration  for  Daniel  Webster.  No  one  who  in 
his  youth  has  seen  and  heard  that  senator  can  wonder 
at  the  enthusiasm  and  hope  with  which  Emerson  once 
looked  up  to  him  as  the  man  of  the  u  Great  Stone 
Face.'*  "He  looks  like  a  sort  of  cathedral,"  said 
Carlyle  when  he  saw  Webster,  forty-four  years  ago, 
and  Emerson  was  happy  at  such  admiration  of  his 
senator.  Besides  this,  his  brother  Edward  had  studied 
law  with  Wrebster  and  received  much  kindness  from 
him.  It  was  a  heavy  blow  to  Emerson  when  Webster 
surrendered  to  slavery,  and  gave  his  aid  to  pass  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Bill.  The  youth  of  Massachusetts,  who 
worshipped  the  eloquent  senator,  were  much  demoral 
ised  by  his  course  and  speech ;  and  Emerson,  albeit 
with  a  heavy  heart,  for  the  first  time  took  part  in  a 
political  campaign.  The  Hon.  J.  G.  Palfrey,  whose 
opposition  to  the  encroachments  of  slavery  had  cost 
Mm  his  seat  in  Congress,  was  nominated  as  Gover- 


306  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

nor  of  Massachusetts,  and  Emerson  made  speeches 
in  favour  of  his  election.  One  of  especial  importance 
was  given  at  Cambridge.  The  hall  was  crowded, 
chiefly  by  students,  and  Emerson,  in  the  course  of  his 
speech,  pictured  the  car  of  Slavery  and  its  abomina 
tions,  with  Webster  as  leading  horse  straining  to  drag 
it.  A  storm  of  hisses,  perhaps  the  first  Emerson  ever 
heard,  broke  through  the  middle  of  his  first  severe  sen 
tence.  Emerson  paused,  but  stood  with  face  unmoved, 
as  if  it  were  an  outside  wind,  then  serenely  continued 
with  the  very  next  word  of  the  sentence  as  if  there  had 
been  no  uproar.  With  the  tone  of  a  judge  pronouncing 
sentence  he  said  of  Webster,  "  Every  drop  of  his  blood 
has  eyes  that  look  downward.  He  knows  the  heroes 
of  1776,  but  cannot  see  those  of  1851  when  he  meets 
them  on  the  street." 

Daniel  Webster  felt  the  rebuke  of  Emerson,  at  whose 
house  he  had  been  entertained,  and  in  a  letter  printed 
in  Sanborn's  "  Thoreau,"  gave  as  a  reason  for  not 
visiting  Concord  that  "  many  of  those  whom  I  so  highly 
esteemed  in  your  beautiful  and  quiet  village  have  be 
come  a  good  deal  estranged,  to  my  great  grief,  by 
abolitionism,  freesoilism,  transcendentalism,  and  other 
notions  which  I  cannot  but  regard  as  so  many  vagaries 
of  the  imagination/  When  Webster  died,  broken 
hearted  at  having  failed  in  the  great  object,  the  Presi 
dency,  for  which  he  had  sacrificed  so  much,  his  best 
epitaph  was  the  words  of  Emerson,  "He  had  honour 
enough  to  feel  degraded." 

On  the  7th  of  March,  1854,  exactly  four  years  after 
Webster's  speech  in  defence  of  slave-hunting,  when  the 
country  was  agitated  by  a  fresh  aggression  of  slavery 


THE    FYTIIOX.  307 

(the  Nebraska  Bill) ,  Emerson  delivered  a  remarkable 
address  in  New  York.  It  was,  he  said,  the  stern  edict 
of  progress  that  liberty  shall  be  no  hasty  fruito  It  is 
the  result  of  the  perfectness  of  man.  Mountains  of 
difficulty  must  be  surmounted,  wiles  of  seduction  must 
be  met,  dangers  encountered.  Man  must  be  healed  by 
a  quarantine  of  calamities  before  he  dare  say  "  I  am 
free  !  '  The  patience  required  is  almost  too  sublime 
for  mortals  when  one  sees  how  fast  the  rot  spreads. 
We  demand  of  superior  men  that  they  shall  be  superior 
in  this,  that  the  mind  and  virtue  of  the  country  shall 
give  their  verdict  in  their  day,  and  help  to  pull  down 
the  wrong.  Possession  is  sure  to  throw  its  stupid 
strength  for  the  existing  power  ;  appetite  and  ambition 
will  go  for  that.  Let  the  aid  of  virtue  and  intelligence 
be  cast  where  they  belong  ;  they  are  organically  ours. 
The  English  Earl  Grey  said  on  a  memorable  occasion, 
that  "  he  should  stand  by  his  order."  The  instructed 
or  illuminated  class  should  know  their  own  flag  and  not 
stand  for  the  kingdom  of  darkness.  We  should  not 
forgive  the  clergy  of  a  country  for  taking  on  every 
issue  the  immoral  side  ;  nor  should  we  justify  a  gover 
nor —  as  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania  did — in  sus 
taining  a  mob  against  the  laws.  The  lovers  of  liberty 
may  tax  with  coldness  the  scholars  and  literary  class. 
They  were  all  lovers  of  liberty  in  Greece,  but  the  uni 
versities  are  now  seats  of  conservatism.  They  grow 
worldly  and  political.  He  remembered  an  occasion 
when  the  university  had  a  distinguished  son  returning 
from  the  political  arena  to  address  her.  He  listened 
to  the  speech  of  this  orator,  this  eminent  political  man. 
If  sometimes  audiences  forget  themselves,  statesmen 


308  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

do  not.  The  low  bows  to  all  the  crockery  gods  of  the 
day  were  duly  made  —  only  that  in  one  part  of  the 
discourse  the  orator  allowed  to  transpire,  against  his 
will  perhaps,  a  little  sober  sense.  He  would  not  say 
he  said  it,  but  this  wras  what  he  (Emerson)  heard  in  his 
ear:  '4  I  am,  you  see,  a  man  virtuously  inclined,  but 
only  corrupt  by  my  profession  of  politics.  I  prefer  to 
be  upon  the  right  side.  You  had  the  power  to  make 
your  verdict  clear  and  prevailing  in  favour  of  right, 
and  had  you  done  so,  you  would  have  found  me  your 
willing  champion.  But  vou  have  not  done  so — you 
have  not  armed  me.  I  have  to  deal  with  men  and 
things  as  they  are.  Abstractions  are  not  for  me.  I 
go  for  such  parties  as  they  provide  me  with.  Although 
I  am  now  to  tempt  you,  you  see  it  is  not  my  will,  but 
my  necessities  which  make  me  do  so."  Having  made 
this  declaration,  he  proceeded  with  his  work  of  de 
nouncing  freedom,  but  with  a  lingering  conscience 
which  qualified  each  sentence  with  a  recommendation  to 
mercy.  "  But  now,  gentlemen,"  continued  Emerson, 
"  I  put  it  to  every  noble  and  generous  spirit  in  the 
land  —  to  every  poetic,  to  every  heroic,  to  every  reli 
gious  heart  —  that  not  so  are  our  learning,  our  educa 
tion,  our  poetry,  our  worship  to  be  declared ;  not  by 
heads  reverted  to  the  dying  Demosthenes,  nor  to  Wal 
lace,  nor  to  George  Fox,  nor  to  George  Washington, 
but  to  the  dangers  and  dragons  that  beset  the  United 
States  at  this  hour.  Gentlemen,  it  is  not  possible  to 
extricate  one's  self  from  the  questions  in  which  our  age 
is  involved.  I  hate  that  we  should  be  content  with 
standing  on  the  defensive.  Liberty  is  the  crusade  of 


THE    PYTHOX.  309 

all  brave  and  conscientious  men  —  the  epic  poetry,  the 
new  religion,  the  chivalry  of  all  gentlemen." 

About  this  time  I  was  often  with  Emerson,  as  were 
other  students,  and  the  service  we  could  render  in  the 
growing  perils  of  freedom  and  of  the  country  was  often 
the  subject  of  anxious  consultation.  Emerson  was 
careful  to  remind  us  that  slavery,  like  other  wrongs, 
had  invisible  roots,  and  that  no  reform,  however  much 
so  in  appearance,  was  really  radical,  which  did  not  cul 
tivate  the  spiritual  soil  so  that  it  would  not  bear  rank 
and  poisonous  growths.  "There  is  no  man  of  any 
importance  in  our  history,  and  none  of  our  time,  who 
has  not  spoken  or  recorded  his  word  against  slavery. 
Generally  speaking,  a  sound  man  says, '  I  have  my  own 
affair,  and  cannot  do  your  affair  well,  but  my  opinion 
shall  be  given  plainly.'  But  when  the  ship  is  in  a 
storm  the  passengers  must  lend  a  hand,  and  even 
women  tug  at  the  ropes." 

In  every  emergency  during  the  anti-slavery  agita 
tion,  and  at  each  critical  event  in  the  national  history, 
Emerson  invariably  spoke  the  right  and  serviceable 
•word,  as  well  as  the  profoundest  word  ;  he  gave  leaders 
their  texts  and  the  rank  and  file  their  watchwords. 
These  were  by  no  means  denunciations  of  the  South, 
to  which  he  was  always  magnanimous.  During  the 
war  he  said  in  a  public  address  that  the  South  had 
never  before  appeared  to  such  advantage.  But  he  was 
a  patriot,  and  was  not  so  lenient  to  the  Northern  men 
who  abetted  slavery.  On  one  occasion  a  prominent 
person,  with  whom  he  had  travelled  pleasantly  in  Eu 
rope,  but  who  had  distinguished  himself  by  friendliness 
with  the  assailant  of  his  own  senator  (Sumner),  came 


310  EMERSOX    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

to  Emerson  after  a  lecture  and  offered  his  hand.  Em 
erson's  voice  was  never  gentler  than  as  he  said,  "If 
what  I  hear  be  true,  I  must  shake  hands  with  you 
under  protest."  When  Sumner  was  assaulted  by  a 
Southerner  in  the  Senate,  Emerson  said,  "I  think  we 
must  get  rid  of  slavery  or  get  rid  of  freedom.  Life 
has  no  parity  of  value  in  the  free  State  and  in  the 
slave  State."  To  a  Boston  orator  who  declared  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  a  series  of  "  glittering 
generalities,"  he  replied,  "  They  are  blazing  ubiqui 
ties."  When  Captain  John  Brown  made  his  armed 
attack  on  slavery  in  Virginia,  and  multitudes  called 
him  insane,  Emerson  silenced  those  "who  can  only 
cry  '  Madman  ! '  when  a  hero  passes,"  and  said  that  if 
Brown  should  suffer,  he  would  ' '  make  his  gallows  glo 
rious  like  a  cross." 

Not  long  after  this  Emerson  visited  us  at  Cincinnati 
(whose  streets  looked  over  into  slave  territory),  and 
one  evening  was  in  a  company  where  several  eminent 
citizens,  who  enjoyed  his  lectures,  were  still  troubled 
by  his  reported  words  about  Captain  Brown's  gallows 
being  glorious  like  a  cross.  A  wealthy  Conservative 
did  not  believe  that  the  gentle  philosopher  had  so  said, 
and  asked  him  about  it.  "Of  course,"  he  said,  "I  do 
not  believe  it,  but  would  like  to  be  able  to  answer  the 
rumour  on  your  own  authority."  Emerson  asked  that 
the  reported  words  should  be  repeated,  and  then  re 
marked,  "That's  about  what  I  said."  The  questioner, 
much  shocked,  said,  "  Surely  you  do  not  approve  the 
bloody  raid  of  John  Brown  upon  the  families  of  Vir 
ginia."  Emerson  slowly  replied,  "  If  I  should' tell  you 
why  I  disapproved,  you  might  not  like  it  any  better." 


THE    PYTHON.  311 

On  the  day  and  hour  of  John  Brown's  execution,  the 
people  of  Concord  gathered  in  their  town-hall  and  were 
addressed  by  their  eminent  men.  A  striking  incident  of 
the  meeting  was  the  reading  by  Emerson  of  Allingham's 
poem,  "  The  Touchstone  :  " 

u  A  man  there  came,  whence  none  could  tell, 
Bearing  a  touchstone  in  his  hand, 
And  tested  all  things  in  the  land 
By  its  unerring  spell." 

With  every  verse  Emerson's  tone  grew  more  pro 
phetic,  and  his  eye  shone  as  if  the  future  were  close  to 
it  as  he  repeated  the  last : 

"  But,  though  they  slew  him  with  the  sword, 
And  in  a  fire  his  touchstone  burned, 
Its  doings  could  not  be  o'erturned, 
Its  undoings  restored. 

"And  when,  to  stop  all  future  harm, 
They  strewed  its  ashes  on  the  breeze, 
They  little  guessed  each  grain  of  these 
Conveyed  the  perfect  charm." 

This  poem  was  published  by  the  press  throughout 
the  Northern  States  as  one  written  for  the  occasion  by 
Emerson  himself,  and  much  applauded.  None  was 
more  anxious  than  he  to  have  due  credit  awarded  his 
friend  Allingham,  and  "The  Touchstone"  is  among 
the  seven  pieces  by  that  poet  included  in  Emerson's 
"Parnassus."  Not  long  after  that  solemn  assembly 
gathered  at  Concord,  where  the  martyr  was  personally 
known  and  loved,  the  "John  Brown  Song"  became  the 
battle-hymn  of  the  Union  armies. 

Emerson  not  only  at  every  critical  point  spoke  the 


312  EMERSOX    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

best  and  bravest  word,  but  was  as  prompt  to  share  any 
personal  obloquy  or  danger  as  he  had  been  in  earlier 
years,  when  he  took  Harriet  Martineau  to  his  house  in 
the  face  of  the  mob.  When  the  Southern  States  began 
to  secede,  frightened  compromisers  in  the  North  hoped 
to  soothe  them  by  silencing  the  abolitionists ;  roughs 
were  employed  to  fill  the  anti- slavery  halls,  hurl  mis 
siles  at  the  speakers,  and  drown  every  voice  with  their 
yells.  When  these  scenes  were  occurring  in  Boston, 
Emerson  repaired  thither  and  took  his  place  on  the 
platform.  The  Music  Hall,  on  one  such  occasion,  was 
possessed  by  a  vast  throng  of  screaming  roughs,  whom 
the  well-known  anti-slavery  orators  vainly  tried  to 
address.  Even  by  those  near  the  platform  no  word 
could  be  heard.  Garrison  was  almost  in  despair,  as 
was  Wendell  Phillips,  who  just  then  caught  sight  of 
Emerson  looking  calmly  on  the  wild  scene.  He  went 
to  him  and  whispered.  Emerson  advanced  ;  the  roughs 
did  not  know  this  man,  and  there  was  a  break  in  the 
roar,  through  which  was  now  heard  the  voice  of  Emer 
son,  beginning,  "Christopher  North  —  you  have  all 
heard  of  Christopher  North."  There  was  perfect 
silence,  as  if  the  name  had  paralysed  every  man;  Not 
one  of  them  had  ever  heard  of  Christopher  North,  but 
this  assumption  of  their  intelligence  by  the  intellectual 
stranger  disarmed  them.  Emerson  told  his  story  of 
Christopher  North,  —  that  he  once  defended  his  mod 
eration  in  having  only  kicked  some  scoundrels  out  of 
the  door  instead  of  pitching  them  out  of  the  window, 
—  and  went  on  to  shew  that  under  the  circumstances 
the  abolitionists  had  exercised  moderation.  The  power 
of  mind  over  matter  was  happily  displayed  in  the  atten- 


THE    PYTHON.  313 

tion  with  which  that  mad  crowd  listened  to  Emerson, 
who  spoke  admirably,  though  without  notes  or  prep 
aration. 

During  the  war,  in  which  many  of  his  friends  were 
slain  and  his  only  son  wounded,  no  man  did  better 
service  than  Emerson  with  voice,  pen,  and  means.  It 
was  a  terrible  trial  to  him,  the  war  —  keeping  him,  as 
he  said,  from  sleep  ;  and  I  do  not  think  he  ever  quite 
recovered  from  the  effects  of  it.  Once,  when  I  had  just 
arrived  in  Boston  from  Washington,  where  I  had  con 
versed  writh  President  Lincoln,  and  found  him  waiting 
for  Northern  opinion  to  advance  to  a  demand  for  the 
extinction  of  slavery,  I  found  that  Emerson  was  about 
to  give  a  lecture  there  on  the  condition  of  the  country. 
I  asked  him  to  come  to  my  room  at  the  hotel,  and  when 
we  were  alone  I  said  to  him,  ' '  The  accident  of  my  being 
born  and  brought  up  in  the  South  enables  me  to  give  a 
practical  suggestion.  You  remember  how  Thoreau  used 
to  catch  bream  with  only  his  hand  out  of  Concord  river. 
He  had  found  that  this  fish  had  the  peculiarity  of  has 
tening  to  defend  its  spawn,  and  b}T  placing  his  hand 
under  the  spawn  pulled  up  the  fish.  Well,  the  spawn 
of  the  South  is  its  slaves  ;  we  have  only  to  put  our 
hands  on  it,  and  these  armies  now  resisting  us  will 
hasten  back  to  hold  on  to  its  slaves.  As  long  as  we 
do  not  touch  slavery,  the  negroes  till  the  fields,  and  it 
is  they  who  point  the  soldier  at  us  as  the  soldier  points 
his  gun."  Emerson  proceeded  at  once  to  say  this  in 
his  lecture,  unnecessarily  mentioning  it  as  my  sug 
gestion,  and  added,  "  I  hope  that  it  is  not  fatal  to  this 
method  that  it  is  entirely  moral  and  just."  He  also,  I 
believe,  urged  the  same  plan  at  Washington,  where  his 


314  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

lecture  was  attended  by  the  President  and  his  cabinet. 
The  President  was  much  esteemed  by  Emerson,  and  I 
once  heard  him  say  that,  in  an  earlier  age,  Lincoln's 
good  stories  would  have  earned  him  the  fame  of  a 
Pilpay. 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  in  this  volume  to 
Emerson's  "  Boston  Hymn,"  read  by  him  on  the  New 
Teat's  Day  which  brought  the  President's  proclamation 
of  freedom  to  the  slaves.  On  the  eve  of  that  day  the 
negroes  of  Boston  had  assembled  to  keep  ''watch- 
night,"  and,  as  their  preacher  said,  "to  watch  and  see 
that  the  President  kept  his  promise."  In  that  humble 
assembly  there  was  at  midnight  a  symbolical  hissing  to 
indicate  the  last  distress  of  the  dying  Python.  In  the 
morning  th»e  people  assembled,  and  Emerson  read  his 
"•  Boston  Efymn."  How  gently,  with  all  calm  enforce 
ment,  did  his  tones  march  to  their  climax  : 

"  Come  East  and  West  and  North, 

By  races,  as  snowflakes, 
And  carry  my  purpose  forth, 
Which  neither  halts  nor  shakes. 

"  My  will  fulfilled  shall  be, 

For,  in  daylight  as  in  dark, 
My  thunderbolt  has  eyes  to  see 
His  way  home  to  the  mark." 

Thus  did  the  President  of  the  literary,  respond  to 
the  President  of  the  political  Republic,  whose  Procla 
mation  closed  with  the  words  —  ' '  Upon  this  act, 
sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice  warranted  by 
the  constitution  upon  military  necessity,  I  invoke  the 


THE    PYTHON.  315 

considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and  the  gracious 
favour  of  Almighty  God." 

Python  appeared  to  coil  and  struggle  for  a  time  yet, 
but  to  the  eye  of  Emerson  it  lay  already  dead,  and  to 
some  other  eyes  it  was  his  own  shining  arrow,  so  softly 
feathered  and  sent  in  the  beginning  of  the  generation, 
which  lay  nearest  its  heart. 

When  the  war  had  ended,  he  gave  one  of  his  grand 
est  orations  in  Boston,  at  the  close  of  which  he  uttered 
the  true  American  faith.  ''America  means  opportuni 
ty,  freedom,  power.  The  genius  of  this  country  has 
marked  out  her  true  policy  :  opportunity  —  doors  wide 
open  —  every  port  open.  If  I  could,  I  would  have 
free  trade  with  all  the  world,  without  toll  or  custom 
house.  Let  us  invite  every  nation,  evenr  race,  every 
skin  ;  white  man,  black  man,  red  man,  yellow  man. 
Let  us  offer  hospitality,  a  fair  field,  and  equal  laws  to 
all.  The  land  is  wide  enough,  the  soil  has  food  enough 
for  all.  Let  us  educate  every  soul." 

It  was  a  sign  "gracious  as  rainbows"  that,  in  the 
centennial  year  of  American  Independence,  Emerson 
delivered  the  oration  before  the  Literary  Societies  of 
the  University  of  Virginia. 


316  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 


XXVIII. 

EMEKSON  IN  ENGLAND. 

SOME  brief  account  of  Emerson's  first  visit  to  Eng 
land,  near  fifty  years  ago,  has  been  given  in  the 
earlier  pages  of  this  book.  When  Professor  Charles 
Norton,  to  whom  both  Carlyle  and  Emerson  intrusted 
the  editing  of  their  correspondence,  has  completed  the 
task,  for  which  none  can  be  more  fit,  the  world  will  see 
both  men  in  a  clearer  light ;  and  it  will  also  be  the  best 
introduction  to  the  history  of  Emerson's  work,  friend 
ships,  and  experiences  in  England. 

Carlyle's  preface  to  Emerson's  first  series  of  Essays 
(London,  James  Eraser,  1841)  is  one  of  his  character 
istic  writings,  but  it  shews  that  he  had  not  understood 
the  aim  of  Emerson.  He  quotes  Paul  Louis  Courrier, 
"  Ce  qui  me  distingue  de  tons  mes  contemporains  c'est 
que  je  n'ai  pas  la  prctention  d'etre  roi ;  "  and  regards 
Emerson  as  one  contemptuously  withdrawn  from  his 
nation. 

Among  the  first  to  be  stirred  by  the  Essays  was  John 
Sterling,  who  dedicated  his  "  Straff ord,"  to  Emerson : 

u  Teacher  of  starry  wisdom,  high,  serene, 

Receive  the  gift  our  common  ground  supplies ; 
Red  flowers,  dark  leaves,  that  ne'er  on  earth  had  been 
Without  the  influence  of  sidereal  skies." 


EMERSON   IN   ENGLAND.  317 

In  18-45,  when  Edgar  Quinet  was  lecturing  at  the 
College  de  France,  he  paid  an  eloquent  tribute  to  the 
genius  of  Emerson.  "  What  we  announce  in  Europe," 
he  said,  "from  the  summit  of  a  ruined  past,  he  also 
announces  in  the  germinating  solitude  of  a  world  abso 
lutely  new. ' '  Although  Emerson  cared  little  for  French 
philosophy,  the  coincidences  between  his  thought  and 
expression  and  those  of  Quinet  are  sometimes  striking. 
On  Matthew  Arnold  the  Essays  made  a  deep  impres 
sion.  Matthew  Arnold  wrote  in  the  volume  this  son 
net  : 

u  '  O  monstrous,  dead,  unprofitable  world! 

That  thou  canst  hoar,  and  hearing,  hold  thy  way. 
A  voice  oracular  hath  pealed  to-day, 
To-day  a  hero's  banner  is  unfurled. 
Hast  thou  no  lip  for  welcome?'    So  I  said. 
Man  after  man  the  world  smiled  and  passed  by, 
A  smile  of  wistful  incredulity, 
As  though  one  spake  of  noise  unto  the  dead : 
Scornful,  and  strange,  and  sorrowful,  and  full 
Of  bitter  knowledge.     Yet  the  Will  is  free. 
Strong  is  the  soul,  and  wise,  and  beautiful : 
The  seeds  of  godlike  power  are  in  us  still : 
Gods  are  we,  bards,  saints,  heroes,  if  we  will. 
Dumb  judges  answer,  truth  or  mockery?" 

But  the  world  was  not  so  insensate  as  the  sonnet 
supposes.  The  tidings  spread  swiftly  around  that  a 
u  voice  oracular"  had  been  heard  in  America,  and  it 
was  loudly  called  for  in  England.  It  was  slow  in 
responding,  but  one  of  its  disciples  appeared. 

In  the  London  "Morning  Chronicle"  of  July  5, 
1842,  there  appeared  the  following  notice  :  —  "  PUIILIC 
INVITATION.  —  An  open  meeting  of  the  friends  of  human 


318  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

progress  will  be  held  to-morrow,  July  6,  at  Mr.  Wright's, 
Alcott  House  School,  Ham  Common,  near  Richmond, 
Surrey,  for  the  purpose  of  considering  and  adopting 
means  for  the  promotion  of  the  great  end,  when  all  who 
are  interested  in  human  destiny  are  earnestly  urged  to 
attend.  The  chair  taken  at  three  o'clock,  and  again  at 
seven,  by  A.  Bronson  Alcott,  Esq.,  now  on  a  visit  from 
America."  This  invitation  found  about  a  score  sufficient 
ly  interested  in  or  curious  about "  the  great  end  "  to  turn 
aside  from  the  great  world  and  seat  themselves  on  the 
lawn  to  hear  the  apostle  speak  of  ' '  the  instauration  of 
spirit ;  "  and  they  came  at  length  to  the  following  con 
clusion  :  — 

"  In  order  to  obtain  the  highest  excellence  of  which 
man  is  capable,  the  generation  of  a  new  race  of  persons 
is  demanded,  who  shall  project  institutions  and  initiate 
conditions  altogether  original  and  commensurate  with 
the  being  and  wants  of  humanity.  The  germs  of  this 
new  generation  are  even  now  discernible  in  human  be- 

& 

ings,  but  have  been  hitherto  either  choked  by  ungenial 
circumstances,  or  having  borne  fruit  prematurely  or 
imperfectly,  have  attained  no  abiding  growth.  It  is 
proposed  to  select  a  spot  whereon  a  new  Eden  may  be 
planted,  and  man  may,  untempted  by  evil,  dwell  in 
harmony  with  his  Creator,  with  himself,  his  fellows, 
and  with  all  external  natures.  Providence  seems  to 
have  ordained  the  United  States,  more  especially  New 
England,  as  the  field  wherein  this  idea  is  to  be  realised 
in  actual  experience." 

The  "  great  end"  of  this  fine  dream  is  now  repre 
sented  by  the  name  "Alcott  House"  on  Ham  Com 
mon,  and  by  a  pleasant  cottage  in  Concord,  where, 


EMERSON   IN    ENGLAND.  319 

with  his  daughter,  who  has  gained  an  eminent  place 
among  American  novelists,  a  handsome  white-haired 
old  man  passes  his  declining  years  in  a  peaceful  Eden 
of  his  own. 

The  longing  to  see  and  hear  Emerson  was  not  to  be 
quieted.  His  friend  Alexander  Ireland  put  the  mat 
ter  strongly  to  him,  and  he  began  to  yield.  "  I  feel  no 
call  to  make  a  visit  of  literary  propagandism  in  Eng 
land,"  he  wrote.  "  All  my  impulses  to  work  of  that 
kind  would  rather  employ  me  at  home.  It  would  be 
still  more  unpl  easing  to  me  to  put  upon  a  few  friends 
the  office  of  collecting  an  audience  for  me,  by  much 
advertisement  and  coaxing.  At  the  same  time..*-  it 
would  be  very  agreeable  to  me  to  accept  any  good  in 
vitation  to  read  lectures  from  institutions  or  from  a 
number  of  friendly  individuals  who  sympathised  with 
my  studies.  But  though  I  possess  a  good  many  de 
cisive  tokens  of  interest  in  my  pursuits  and  way  of 
thinking  from  sundry  British  men  and  women,  they 
are  widely  sundered  persons,  and  my  belief  is,  that  in 
no  one  city,  except  perhaps  in  London,  could  I  find 
any  numerous  company  to  whom  my  name  was  favour 
ably  known."  u  You  must  not  sutfer  your  own  friendly 
feelings  to  give  the  smallest  encouragement  to  the  de 
sign." 

When  it  was  announced  that  Emerson  would  visit 
England  and  read  lectures,  applications  from  every 
part  of  the  kingdom  came  to  Mr.  Ireland,  and  in 
many  cases  it  was  found  impossible  to  comply  with 
them.  Emerson  arrived  at  Liverpool  by  the  packet 
ship  "Washington  Irving,"  October  22,  1847.  Mr. 
Ireland  received  a  letter  from  Carlyle,  dated  at  Chel- 


320  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

sea  ten  days  after  Emerson  had  sailed.  "  By  a  letter 
I  had  very  lately  from  Emerson  —  which  had  lain,  lost 
and  never  missed,  for  above  a  month  in  the  treacherous 
post-office  of  Buxton,  where  it  was  called  for  and  denied 
—  I  learn  that  Emerson  intended  to  sail  for  this  coun 
try  'about  the  1st  of  October;'  and  infer,  therefore, 
that  probably  even  now  he  is  near  Liverpool  or  some 
other  of  our  ports.  Treadmill  or  other  as  emphatic 
admonition  to  that  scandalous  postmaster  of  Buxton  ! 
He  has  put  me  in  extreme  risk  of  doing  one  of  the 
most  unfriendly  and  every  way  unpardonable-looking 
things  a  man  could  do.  Not  knowing  in  the  least  to 
what  port  Emerson  is  tending,  when  he  is  expected,  or 
what  his  first  engagements  are,  I  find  no  way  of  mak 
ing  my  word  audible  to  him  in  time,  except  that  of  in 
trusting  it,  with  solemn  charges,  to  you,  as  here. 
Pray  do  me  the  favour  to  contrive  in  some  sure  way 
that  Emerson  may  get  hold  of  that  note  the  instant  he 
lands  in  England.  I  shall  be  permanently  grieved 
otherwise  ;  shall  have  failed  in  a  clear  duty  (were  it 
nothing  more) ,  which  will  never,  probably,  in  my  life 
offer  itself  again.  Do  not  neglect,  I  beg  much  of  you  ; 
and,  on  the  whole,  if  you  can,  get  Emerson  put  safe 
into  the  express  train,  and  shot  up  hither,  as  the  first 
road  he  goes.  That  is  the  result  we  aim  at.  But  the 
note  itself,  at  all  events,  I  pray  you  get  that  delivered 
duly,  and  so  do  me  a  very  great  favour,  for  which  I  de 
pend  on  you."  These  injunctions  were  faithfully  car 
ried  out,  and  Emerson  was  soon  in  the  hospitable 
home  of  his  friend  in  Manchester. 

His  first  course  of  lectures  was  delivered  at  the  Man 
chester  Athenajum,  its  subject,  "  Representative  Men." 


EMERSON    IN    ENGLAND.  321 

lie  next  gave  four  in  the  Manchester  Mechanics'  Insti 
tution.  It  is  pleasant  to  find  in  a  provincial  paper  of 
the  time  such  a  criticism  as  the  following:  —  "The 
first  tendril  is  now  wound  around  your  heart  and  your 
attention  is  riveted.  He  uses  no  action,  save  occasion 
ally  a  slight  vibration  of  the  body,  as  though  rocking 
beneath  the  hand  of  some  unseen  power.  Then  drop 
the  pearls  from  his  mouth  in  quick  succession,  and 
noiselessly  do  they  sink  into  the  hearts  of  his  hearers, 
there  to  abide  for  ever,  and,  like  the  famed  carbuncle 
in  Eastern  cave,  shed  a  mild  radiance  on  all  things 
therein.  Your  breath  is  now  hushed,  and  all  eyes  are 
on  his  lips  as  on  the  wand  of  a  magician,  stealing  away 
each  faculty  and  leading  you  captive  at  his  will." 
During  his  stay  at  Manchester,  Emerson  was  enter 
tained  at  a  banquet  at  the  Athenamm,  presided  over 
by  Sir  A.  Alison,  and  attended  by  Richard  Cobden  and 
other  eminent  men,  and  made  a  speech  always  remem 
bered  by  those  who  heard  it.  — -^ 

It  is  not  a  little  curious  to  trace  the  first  impression 
made  by  Emerson  upon  an  English  audience.  A  writer 
in  "  Howitt's  Journal"  begins  with  expressions  of 
disappointment.  He  had  heard  the  lecture  on  Sweden- 
borg,  and  finds  it  a  misty  subject,  mistily  treated. 
"Some  man  near  me  gravety  asked  his  neighbour  if 
he  did  not  think  he  could  understand  it  better  if  they 
stood  on  their  heads."  The  tones  of  the  voice  are 
nasal,  but  at  the  same  time  "  they  now  and  then  come 
out  with  musical  richness  and  depth."  "  His  delivery 
is  indifferent  and  careless.  .  .  .  He  reads  wrords  of 
passionate  admiration,  of  reprehension,  of  dissent,  and 
of  contempt,  and  his  voice  hardly  varied ;  his  counte- 


322  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

nance  still  less."  But  now  the  writer  has  listened  to 
another  lecture,  that  on  Montaigne,  and  writes  as  fol 
lows  :  —  The  stairs  were  as  much  and  as  early  crowded  ; 
the  lecture-room  rather  less  so,  but  still  well  filled. 
He  came  on  the  platform  in  the  same  simple,  quiet, 
almost  careless  and  indifferent  manner.  But  it  grows 

& 

upon  one,  does  this  unconsciousness  of  an}7thing  but 
the  matter  in  hand  No  loss  of  time  in  bowing,  but 
instant  commencement,  almost  before  the  clapping 
•(which  he  seemed  not  to  hear)  had  subsided.  It  was 
a  noble  lecture.  .  .  .  Suddenly  he  closed  his  MS.,  and 
was  off  and  away  while  we  were  yet  pondering  the  full 
meaning  of  his  last  exquisite  sentence.  It  is  curious 
to  trace  back  and  perceive  how  one's  admiration  and 
appreciation  of  him  grows.  His  voice,  his  delivery,  his 
very  carelessness  of  his  audience,  his  indifference  as  to 
whether  they  understand  him  or  no,  seem  to  become  en 
deared  to  one  as  forming  part  of  the  individual  Emer 
son,  whose  thoughtful  pathway  lies  alone  through  the 
mental  world.  For  he  does  not  remind  me  of  Carlyle, 
to  whom  so  many  are  fond  of  likening  him.  In  form  of 
sentence,  in  strange,  quaint,  and  often  beautiful  similes, 
in  the  completely  new  light  in  which  he  views  com 
monplace  things,  he  strikes  me  as  more  resembling 
Jean  Paul.  But  the  resemblance  of  Emerson  to  any 
one  must  spring  from  internal  likeness  :  he  is  not  one 
to  condescend  to  catch  tricks  of  manner  or  style  from 
any  other  person." 

The  early  appreciation  of  Emerson  in  England  is  so 
interesting  and  creditable  a  fact  that  I  must  quote 
also  a  discriminating  criticism  which  appeared  in  the 
"  Gateshead  Observer  : " —  "There  is  a  simplicity  about 


EMERSON   IN   ENGLAND.  323 

his  delivery,  in  which,  to  me  at  least,  lies  one-half  of 
his  intellectual  grandeur.  He  reads  with  a  clear  enun 
ciation  and  a  slight  American  accent,  and  utters  the 
deepest  and  sublimest  thoughts  with  an  unconscious 
ness  and  a  modesty,  a  serene  earnestness  and  a  noble 
catholicity,  and  all  the  other  highest  attributes  of 
genius.  There  is  not  the  slightest  attempt  at  oratory 
—  no  enthusiasm  about  him ;  yet  his  words  have  a 
depth,  and  a  warmth,  and  an  emphasis,  and  a  weigh.ii- 
ness,  and  a  dignity,  and  a  solemnity,  which;  I  believe, 
take  a  deep  root  in  the  minds  of  his  hearers,  and  which 
many  will  never  forget.  He  is  a  thin,  tall  man,  appar 
ently  about  forty-five,  with  an  oval  Yankee  counte 
nance,  rather  sallow  and  emaciated,  and  a  very  promin 
ent  Wellington  nose." 

On  the  6th  of  June,  1848,  Emerson  began  a  series  of 
six  lectures  in  London  on  "The  Minds  and  Manners 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century."  The  programme  of  the 
course  —  which  was  given  at  the  Literary  and  Scientific 
Institution,  17  Edwards  Street,  Portman  Square  — 
comprised  the  following  subjects  :  — 

June     G.  Powers  and  Laws  of  Thought. 
"        8.  Relation  of  Intellect  to  Natural  Science. 

"  10.  Tendencies  and  Duties  of  Men  of  Thought. 

"  13.  Politics  and  Socialism. 

"  15.  Poetry  and  Eloquence. 

"  17.  Natural  Aristocracy. 

These  lectures  were  delivered  at  four  o'clock  of  each 
day.  During  the  course  the  following  letter  appeared  : 

"To  the  Editor  of  the  '  Examiner,'  —  SIR,  —The 
lectures  of  Mr.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  leave  only  one 


324  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

thing  to  be  regretted  —  viz.,  that  they  cannot  be  heard 
by  the  whole  literary  and  artistic  public  of  the  metrop 
olis.,  The  gumea  for  the  course  renders  this  impossible. 
How  many  there  are  who  love  beauty,  and  know  well 
what  it  is,  and  create  it  afresh  every  day  for  their  fel 
low-men,  and  yet  they  cannot  reap  guineas  for  their 
own  instruction  !  I  would  therefore  suggest  to  Mr. 
Emerson,  through  your  influential  trumpet  (what  I 
dare  not  suggest  as  a  private  friend) ,  that  he  present 
the  literary  men  of  London  with  his  utterances  on  a 
liberal  scale.  It  might  be  done  by  fixing  a  small 
admission  charge  commensurate  with  the  means  of 
poets,  critics,  philosophers,  historians,  scholars,  and 
the  other  divine  paupers  of  that  class.  I  feel  that  it 
ought  to  be  done,  because  Emerson  is  a  phenomenon 
whose  like  is  not  in  the  world,  and  to  miss  him  is  to 
lose  an  important  informing  fact  out  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  If,  therefore,  3*011  will  insert  this,  the  favour 
will  at  all  events  have  been  asked,  and  one  conscience 
satisfied.  It  seems  also  probable  that  a  very  large  at 
tendance  of  thoughtful  men  would  be  secured,  and  that 
Emerson's  stirrup-cup  would  be  a  cheering  and  full  one, 
sweet  and  ruddy  with  international  charity.  —  Yours 
always,  —  AN  ATTENDANT  ON  EMERSON'S  PRESENT 
COURSE.  Hampstead,  June  14,  1848." 

Subsequently  Emerson  delivered  three  lectures  at 
Exeter  Hail,  the  surplus  proceeds  of  which  were  de 
voted  to  the  objects  of  the  Metropolitan  Early  Closing 
Association,  by  which  his  services  were  engaged.  The 
subjects  were  "Napoleon,"  "Domestic  Life,"  and 
"  Shakespeare  the  Poet."  In  the  "  Heasoner  "  (July 
5,  1848),  "Panthea"  (Miss  Sophia  D.  Collet) 


EMERSON    IN    ENGLAND.  325 

writes  :  —  "On  Friday  evening,  June  30,  Mr.  Emerson 
gave  his  last  lecture  in  this  country  (on  Shakespeare), 
at  the  end  of  which  Monckton  Milnes,  M.P.,  who  was 
in  the  chair,  made  some  remarks  on  '  the  influences 
which  had  brought  together  the  diverse  elements  of 
Shakespeare,  Mr.  Emerson,  and  Exeter  Hall,'  and 
called  oil  the  audience  to  manifest  their  gratitude  to  the 
lecturer,  which  was  accordingly  done  by  rising  en  masse, 
hearty  cheering,  and  waving  of  hats,  &c.  Mr.  Emer 
son  came  forward,  and  in  a  very  simple  and  pleasing 
manner  thanked  them  for  their  good-will,  and  spoke 
gratefully  of  '  the  unbroken  kindness  he  had  received 
from  a  large  number  of  Englishmen  and  English 
women  during  his  stay  here  —  he  had  not  been  aware 
there  was  so  much  kindness  in  the  world.'  His  visit 
had  enlarged  his  views  on  the  condition  of  England. 
Americans  who  grow  up  in  the  study  of  English  books 
are  apt  to  think  they  know  all  about  England, —  but 
they  were  very  glad  to  come  here  and  know  it  better. 
He  added  that  increased  knowledge  had  increased  his 
respect  for  the  English  character,  sincerely  as  he  had 
previously  esteemed  the  worth  and  probity  of  individ 
uals.  He  had  only  one  thing  more  to  say  to  us,  '  Let 
your  future  be  worthy  of  your  past  and  your  present/ 
he  would  ask  no  more." 

The  lecture  referred  to  by  Miss  Collet  was  not,  how 
ever,  to  be  the  last  in  the  country.  Emerson  had 
already  more  applications  to  visit  various  towns  and 
cities  of  the  country  than  he  could  comply  with  ;  but 
he  made  a  judicious  selection.  He  afterwards  went  to 
Sheffield,  Worcester,  Birmingham,  Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne,  and  other  towns,  and  was  everywhere  greeted  by 


326  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

large  audiences.  At  Leicester  he  was  so  unfortunate 
as  to  leave  his  manuscript  at  the  house  of  his  host  and 
chairman,  Mr.  Joseph  Biggs,  two  miles  distant  from 
the  hall,  and  discovered  the  fact  only  on  the  moment 
announced  for  the  lecture.  As  he  alone  could  bring  it, 
the  audience  enjoyed  two  lectures, —  the  chairman  hav 
ing  amused  them  with  anecdotes  of  absent-mindedness 
in  great  men,  until  his  friend's  return. 

The  subject  for  which  Emerson  had  been  announced 
at  Newcastle  was,  "Shakespeare,  the  Poet;"  but 
when  he  met  his  large  audience  he  told  them  he  had 
resolved  to  substitute  for  it  one  on  "New  England," 
not  delivered  before.  Dissatisfaction  arose  at  this  an 
nouncement,  during  which  the  lecturer  stood  quietly, 
and  then,  stating  that  the  change  seemed  to  him  neces 
sary  b.ecause  one  of  the  papers  had  published  that 
morning  a  full  report  of  the  lecture  he  had  meant  to 
give,  he  gained  the  consent  of  the  audience  to  listen  to 
the  lecture,  by  which  they  were  profoundly  interested. 

A  friend  related  to  me  a  characteristic  incident  in 
connection  with  the  visit  to  Newcastle.  He  inquired 
of  the  gentleman  whose  gaest  he  was  whether  a  poet 
named  William  B.  Scott  resided  there.  His  host  had 
never  heard  of  such  a  person.  The  author  of  "  The 
Year  of  the  World  "  had  been  known  in  Concord,  how 
ever,  and  was  speedily  sought  out  and  invited  to  meet 
the  man  who  knew  his  worth. 

From  Newcastle  he  went  to  Edinburgh,  where  he 
gave  three  lectures  before  the  Philosophical  Institu 
tion,  the  subjects  being  "  Natural  Aristocracy,"  "  The 
Genius  of  the  Present  Age,"  and  "  The  Humanity  of 
Science."  He  was  the  guest  of  the  late  Dr.  Samuel 


EMERSON    IN    ENGLAND.  327 

Brown,  and  was  warmly  welcomed  by  the  circle  of 
scholars  residing  in  that  city. 

The  late  David  Scott,  artist  and  poet,  had  read 
Emerson's  works  before  they  met  in  Edinburgh.  In 
the  biography  of  him  by  his  brother  the  following  is 
quoted  from  his  diary  of  1845:  —  "  Read  lately  the 
Essays  of  Emerson  —  a  worthy  thinker.  The  other 
day  mentioned  him  to  Professor  Wilson,  who  proposed 
to  read  him,  and  said  he  fancied  he  was  both  better 
and  worse  than  Carlyle  —  higher  and  lower.  ...  In 
Emerson  I  find  many  things  that  meet  conclusions 
formed  and  feelings  experienced  by  myself.  He  is  a 
less  sectarian  and  more  unfettered  doctrinist  than  I 
have  yet  met.  As  yet,  however,  I  have  not  arrived  at 
the  basis  (if  he  has  indeed  defined  such)  of  the  super 
structure  of  his  mind."  It  was  at  a  time  when  the 
artist  was  suffering  from  despondency  and  failing 
health  that  Emerson  made  his  acquaintance,  and  sat 
to  him  for  his  portrait ;  and  it  is  perhaps  partly  due  to 
that  circumstance  that  the  following  entry  is  not  more 
hearty  :  —  "  Portrait  of  Emerson  nearly  done  during 
his  stay  here.  My  first  impression  of  him  was  not 
what  I  expected  it  would  have  been.  His  appearance 
is  severe,  and  dry,  and  hard.  But,  although  he  is 
guarded  and  somewhat  cold  at  times,  intercourse  shews 
him  to  be  elevated,  simple,  kind,  and  truthful."  On 
the  other  hand,  the  biographer  records,  "  Emerson  was 
strangely  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the  greatness  of 
Scott's  character,  but  noticed  the  inadequacy  of  his 
verbal  communications  in  ordinary  circumstances,  and 
said,  '  How  rich  I  find  him  in  the  studio  ! ' '  On  one 
occasion  Emerson  having  said  that  there  was  little  or 


328  EMERSOX    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

no  real  poetry  in  Bailey's  "  Festus,"  David  Scott  con 
tested  the  assertion,  and  quoted  with  sadness  the 
line  — 

u  Friendship  hath  passed  me  like  a  ship  at  sea." 

On  leaving  London  Emerson  wrote  him:  "I  carry 
with  me  a  bright  image  of  }*our  house  and  studio,  and 
all  your  immortal  companions  therein,  and  I  wish  to 
keep  the  ways  open  between  us,  natural  and  supernat 
ural.  If  the  Good  Power  had  allowed  me  the  oppor 
tunity  of  seeing  you  more  at  leisure,  and  of  comparing 
notes  of  past  years  a  little  !  And  it  may  yet  be  al 
lowed  in  time  ;  but  where  and  when  ?  "  But  Emerson 
was  destined  never  again  to  meet  one  whom  he  de 
scribed  as  a  "man  of  high  character  and  genius,  the 
short-lived  painter,  David  Scott." 

"  My  portraits,"  Emerson  once  remarked  to  me, 
"  generally  oscillate  between  the  donkey  and  the  Lo 
thario."  David  Scott's  portrait  he  had  to  admit  was 
the  exception  ;  and  it  is  now  held  by  his  townsmen  as 
a  treasure  of  their  Public  Library.  It  is  thought  by 
W.  B.  Scott  to  be  the  best  of  the  few  pictures  of  that 
kind  that  his  brother  painted.  This  portrait  is  a  very 
successful  rendering  of  the  peculiarities  of  Emerson's 
look  and  manner,  which  were  physiognomically  signif 
icant  of  his  thought  and  spirit.  The  slight  depression 
at  the  corners  of  the  mouth,  with  a  touch  of  sternness, 
the  one  arm  extending  from  his  side  as  he  became  more 
animated  by  his  theme,  the  two  or  three  fingers  of  the 
other  hand  pressed  to  the  palm  as  if  holding  tightly 
some  reservation,  all  these,  and  other  indefinable  char 
acteristics  photographed  on  the  mind  of  one  who  has 


EMERSON    IX    ENGLAND.  329 

attentively  listened  to  Emerson,  are  in  this  picture. 
But  some  traits  but  faintly  suggested  in  the  picture 
were  developed  in  after  years,  of  a  kind  that  could  not 
be  shewn  on  canvas. 

After  leaving  Edinburgh  Emerson  was  the  guest  of 
Miss  Martineau  at  Ambleside  for  a  few  days,  and  with 
her  once  more  visited  Wordsworth  at  Rydal  Mount. 

In  the  summer  of  1848  Emerson  went  over  to  Paris, 
and  was  there  during  the  exciting  scenes  of  that  year, 
attending  many  meetings  of  the  clubs.  His  observa 
tions  made  during  that  visit  were  embodied  in  a  bril 
liant  lecture  on  the  French,  which  I  heard  him  deliver 
in  Concord,  but  which  has  not  been  published.  While 
in  Paris  a  fine  crayon  sketch  of  him  was  made  by 
Oswald  Murray,  which  is  now  in  possession  of  Mr. 
Ireland.  Mrs.  Murray  tells  me  that  she  was  so  little 
aware  of  the  eminence  of  the  man  who  used  to  sit  to 
her  husband,  that  when  he  proposed  to  hold  her  baby 
while  she  prepared  tea,  she  always  allowed  him  to  do 
so.  He  was  so  simple  and  kindly  that  she  did  not  feel 
awe  of  him.  Before  leaving  England  in  the  autumn 
he  again  visited  Manchester  ;  and  for  a  few  days  before 
sailing  he  was  the  guest  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Paulet,  of 
Liverpool,  where  a  number  of  his  friends  assembled  to 
take  leave  of  him,  among  them  Arthur  Hugh  Clough. 

A  pamphlet  written  by  ;t  January  Searle,"  pseu 
donym  for  George  Searle  Phil,  relates  an  episode  in 
Emerson's  Manchester  experience : 

"  Before  Emerson  left  England  for  America,  he  in 
vited  a  number  of  gentlemen,  whose  acquaintance  he 
had  made  during  his  sojourn  amongst  us,  to  a  farewell 
symposium  at  Manchester.  A  more  motley,  dissimilar, 


330  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

heterogeneous  mass  of  persons  never  before,  perhaps, 
met  together  at  the  table  of  a  philosopher. 

"  It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  of  that  boisterous  win 
ter's  day  when  we,  having  marched  from  the  far  moors 
of  Yorkshire,  and  crossed  the  steep  and  rocky  summit 
of  Stanedge,  knocked  at  the  gate  of  Emerson's  house 
in  Manchester.  It  was  a  small  unpretending  house, 
with  a  little  garden  in  front,  and  as  we  entered  we 
found  the  hall  crowded  with  coats,  hats,  sticks,  and 
philosophical  umbrellas.  A  large  globe  lamp  stood 
upon  the  table,  and  there  was  the  noise  and  chatter  of 
many  voices,  mingled  with  bursts  of  laughter,  in  the 
room  where  the  guests  were  assembled. 

"We  were  not  expected,  although  warmly  invited, 
for  money  was  scarce  in  those  days  and  the  journey 
long.  As  we  entered  the  room,  therefore,  the  host 
rose  to  welcome  us  all  the  more  cordially,  introducing 
us  to  many  there  who  were  previously  unknown  to  us. 
And  when  we  had  recognised  friends  and  exchanged 
courtesies  with  all,  we  took  our  seat  beside  Emerson, 
who  expressed  himself  happy  in  seeing  so  many  per 
sons  around  him  who  had  interested  themselves  in  so 
many  and  such  various  ways  in  his  mission  to  England. 
'  There  are  some  men  here,'  said  he,  'to  whom  I  should 
like  more  particularly  to  introduce  you  as  persons  of 
mark  and  genius  ; '  and  whilst  he  was  thus  speaking,  a 
tall,  thin,  ungainly  man,  about  thirty  years  of  age, 
speaking  in  squeaks  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  making  all 
kinds  of  grimaces  and  strange  gesticulations,  with  a 
small  Puritan  head,  which  was  more  than  half  forehead, 
approached  to  our  side  of  the  room,  book  in  hand,  de 
sirous,  as  he  said,  of  pointing  out  a  fine  passage  in 


EMERSON   IN    ENGLAND.  331 

Plato  to  Emerson,  which  he  had  just  been  reading,, 
Without  more  ado,  he  put  the  volume  within  half-an- 
inch  of  his  eyes  and  read  the  passage,  after  which  he 
commenced  a  long  dissertation  upon  it,  twisting  his 
body  into  all  conceivable  and  inconceivable  forms,  roll 
ing  up  the  whites  of  his  eyes,  and  moving  his  head 
from  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  extraordinary  activity. 
Learned  and  eloquent,  he  poured  forth  a  stream  of 
talk,  not  presumptuously,  but  with  a  diffident  confidence 
if  we  may  use  such  an  expression,  whilst  Emerson  sat 
silent  and  listening,  with  that  calm,  pale  face  of  his, 
the  eye  thoughtful  but  not  excited,  and  the  mouth  oc 
casionally  lighted  up  with  a  faint  moonlight  smile.  He 
was  evidently  pleased,  and  so  were  all  who  listened  to 
that  wonderful  six  feet  of  brain  and  nerve.  .  .  . 

"  Emerson  smiled.  '  That  man,'  said  he,  '  is  a  fine 
scholar,  has  a  fine  mind,  and  much  real  culture.  He  is 
well  read  in  literature,  in  philosophy,  in  history ;  and 
has  written  rhymes,  which,  like  my  friend  Ellery  Chan- 
ning's,  are  very  nearly  poetry.'  We  then  had  a  con 
versation  ahout  Channing  and  Thoreau.  '  I  will  give 
you,'  said  Emerson,  '  in  a  few  minutes,  a  copy  of 
Channiug's  poems,  and  his  "  Conversations  at  Rome." 
Thoreau,'  he  added,  '  you  will  hear  of  by  and  by.  He 
is  now  writing  a  book,  most  of  which  I  have  heard, 
called  ' '  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimac  Riv 
ers."  '  We  subsequently  went  with  Emerson  to  his 
chamber,  where  he  packed  his  portmanteau  and  gave 
us  these  books  of  Channing's. 

"  We  had  scarcely  returned  to  the  room,  when  a  card 
was  put  into  our  hand  bearing  the  name  of  a  friend 
who  had  long  wished  to  see  Emerson,  and  who  had  now 


332  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

come  from  Nottingham  for  this  purpose.  He  was  well 
known  to  Emerson  through  a  book  he  had  written  on 
Divine,  and  other  far  sweeter,  love  ;  and  we  went  forth 
to  bring  in  the  young  philosophical  theologian  to  the 
host  and  to  the  company.  He  was  a  thin,  timorous 
young  man,  not  more  than  twenty  years  old,  with 
strange  mystic  eyes,  and  a  head  and  face  like  George 
Herbert's  —  a  very  singular  young  man,  loving  God  and 
man  too  much  to  be  a  priest,  and  yet  not  quite  happy 
out  of  the  pale  of  the  Church  —  a  devout  follower  of 
Emerson  at  this  time,  and  tinged  with  his  thought.  He 
sat  at  the  right  hand  of  Emerson,  the  introduction 
being  over,  and  was  the  St.  John  of  the  company.  .  .  . 

"  At  last  the  dinner  was  announced,  and  we  sat  down 
to  the  repast.  Emerson  sat  at  the  head,  and  our  friend 

at  the  foot  of  the  table.  The  Apostle  John  again 

sat  at  the  right  hand  of  his  master,  and  that  odd  com 
pound  of  stuff  from  Birmingham  sat  at  his  left.  Emer 
son  spoke  very  little,  except  whilst  seeing  after  the 
comfort  and  provisioning  of  his  guests.  We  remained 
but  a  short  time  at  the  table  after  dinner,  and  returned 
early  to  the  drawing-room,  there  being  no  wine-bibbers 
present. 

"  The  evening's  entertainment  was  the  one  redeeming 
thing  in  this  banquet.  It  consisted  of  a  reading  by 
Emerson  —  at  urgent  request  —  of  his  paper  on  Plato, 
which  has  since  been  published  in  the  '  Representative 
Men.'  After  that  the  evening  fell  flat  and  dead. 

1 '  The  literary  men  of  England  made  very  little  im 
pression  upon  Emerson,  although  he  spoke  of  some 
modern  works  with  praise.  Of  some  private  and  un 
known  persons  he  was  almost  enthusiastic  in  his  laud- 


EMERSON    IN    ENGLAND.  333 

ations.  It  was  life,  not  literature,  that  he  cared  about. 
And  yet  he  was  a  great  reader  of  Goethe,  and  read  some 
chapters  of  him  every  morning  in  the  German,  and  also 
of  Montaigne.  .  .  . 

"We  all  breakfasted  together  next  morning,  when 
the  Apostle  John  and  ourselves  drove  off  to  the  train 
on  our  separate  journeys  homewards,  bidding  Emerson 
adieu,  perhaps  for  ever." 

Emerson  had  met  a  young  Oxonian  whom  his  eye  held 
like  the  wedding  guest.  This  was  Arthur  Hugh  dough, 
who  used  to  walk  with  him  to  his  London  lectures,  who 
followed  him  to  the  verge  of  the  ocean,  and  presently 
across  it.  He  was  the  last  man  that  parted  with  him 
when  he  passed  down  the  Mersey  on  that  July  day,  and 
he  straightway  wrote  to  a  friend  about  Emerson's  three 
days'  visit  to  Oxford.  "  Everybody  liked  him,  and  as 
the  orthodox  mostly  had  never  heard  of  him,  they  did 
not  suspect  him.  He  is  the  quietest,  plainest,  unob- 
trusivest  man  possible  ;  will  talk,  but  will  rarely  dis 
course  to  more  than  a  single  person,  and  wholly  declines 
'  roaring.'  He  is  very  Yankee  to  look  at,  lank  and 
sallow,  and  not  quite  without  the  twang,  but  his  looks 
and  voice  are  pleasing,  nevertheless,  and  give  you  the 
impression  of  perfect  intellectual  cultivation,  as  com 
pletely  as  would  any  great  scientific  man  in  England  — 
Faraday  or  Owen,  for  instance  —  more  in  their  way, 
perhaps,  than  in  that  of  Wordsworth  or  Caiiyle.  I 
have  been  with  him  a  great  deal ;  for  he  came  over  to 
Paris  and  was  there  a  month,  during  which  we  dined 
together  daily,  and  since  that  I  have  seen  him  often  in 
London,  and  finally  here.  One  thing  that  struck  every 
body  is  that  he  is  much  less  Emersonian  than  his  essays. 


334  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

There  is  no  dogmatism,  or  abitrariness,  or  positiveness 
about  him." 

Emerson  loved  Clough,  and  loved  his  poetry.  In 
18f>2  he  invited  him  to  America,  and  Clough  wrote  back, 
"  My  best  way  of  thanking  you  is,  I  believe,  simply  to 
accept  your  kind  proposal." 

Arthur  Clough  did  some  fine  literary  work  while  he 
was  in  America,  and  he  became  very  dear  to  the  best 
men  and  women  in  that  country.  It  was  with  sorrow 
that  they  parted  from  him ;  when  he  was  married  his 
American  literary  friends  sent  him  presents  ;  and  when 
he  died,  it  was  nowhere  heard  of  with  more  pain  than 
at  Concord  and  Cambridge. 

When  Emerson  was  last  in  England  he  called  sev 
eral  times  on  his  old  friend  W.  B.  Scott,  who  lived 
near  Carlyle,  with  whom  Emerson  spent  some  days, 
and  in  the  course  of  their  conversation  Scott  asked  him 
why  Dante  Rossetti  received  comparatively  little  atten 
tion  in  America.  Emerson  said,  "  We -like  our  own 
period,  and  what  is  vital  in  these  days  about  us,  es 
pecially  in  poetry ;  but  the  Rossetti  work  is  not  touch 
ing  us  —  it  is  exotic." 

It  is  a  notable  fact,  however,  that  when  Emerson's 
works  appeared  in  England,  among  the  first  to  welcome 
them  were  the  Rossettis,  both  William  and  Dante.  The 
Preraphaelist  Brothers  especially  admired  his  poetry, 
as  one  of  them  tells  me,  "  for  its  august  seer-like  qual 
ities,  notwithstanding  some  rustiness  on  the  hinges  of 
verse."  Emerson  is  mentioned  with  honour  in  "The 
Germ."  William  Rossetti  was  present  at  a  lecture  in 
Exeter  Hall  on  "  Napoleon,"  and  tells  me  that  he  well 
remembers  Emerson's  "  upright  figure,  clear-cut  physi- 


EMERSON   IN   ENGLAND.  335 

ognomy,  clear  elocution,  resolved  self-possession.'* 
On  the  other  hand,  a  friend  of  his  was  chilled  by  what 
he  called  "  the  impersonal  demeanour  of  Emerson,  his 
impassivity,  total  want  of  sympathetic  vital  relation 
towards  his  audience."  The  late  Goodwyn  Barmby 
had  attended  Alcott's  conversations  at  Ham  in  1842, 
and  was  not  well  pleased  with  his  version  of  the  Em 
ersonian  gospel,  and  he  had  also  had  but  little  satisfac 
tion  in  his  interviews  with  Margaret  Fuller  ;  but  he  was 
much  impressed  by  Emerson.  Twelve  years  ago  he 
(Goodwyn  Barmby)  wrote  me  :  "  When  Emerson  came 
to  tea  with  me  at  Bayswater,  he  was  quite  enchanted  with 
the  trees  in  Kensington  Gardens.  I  remember  well  his 
frequent  question,  '  Can  you  shew  me  any  men  and 
women?  What  life  have  you  here  in  England?'  I 
knew  well  that  he  was  aiming  at  the  '  being '  before 
;  knowing  and  doing,'  of  James  Pierrepont  Greaves. 
He  was  after  biography  ;  I  was  for  history.  I  had  just 
returned  from  the  French  Revolution  of  '48,  and  had 
witnessed  the  inspiration  of  a  nation,  and  my  harmony 
was  jarred  by  his  not  appearing  to  sympathise  with  the 
social  movement.  He  afterwards  went  to  Paris,  and 
took  up  his  abode  in  the  lovely  little  apartment  which  I 
had  not  long  before  occupied,  in  a  hotel  in  the  Rue  des 
Beaux  Arts,  which  I  think  I  recommended  to  him. 
There  he  would  have  seen  something  of  Hugh  Doherty. 
My  impression  of  Emerson  was  that  he  was  the  most 
beautifully  simple  and  clearest-minded  man  I  ever  met 
with  ;  but  I  then  thought  he  was  too  much  immersed  in 
biographic  ideas,  which  were  after  all  a  certain  reflex 
of  egotism,  and  that  he  wanted  social  sympathy  and 
its  gospel  of  self-sacrifice  to  make  him  a  whole  man. 


EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 


I  have  no  doubt  now  that  your  great  war  has  made  him 
greater." 

In  London  Emerson  boarded  at  the  house  of  Dr. 
Chapman,  where  he  continually  wrote  on  his  lectures, 
and  was  prone  to  let  his  fire  go  out.  At  a  dinner 
party  there  he  met  the  Hennells,  Miss  Collet,  Mr.  Call, 
the  poet,  and  other  liberal  thinkers.  They  were  re 
markably  silent,  apparently  content  to  gaze  upon 
Emerson  and  Carlyle.  '  One  or  two  were  in  an  argu 
mentative  state  of  mind,  and  Emerson  was  averse  to 
everything  polemical  or  controversial.  "  The  children 
of  the  gods  never  argue,"  was  one  of  his  puzzling  re 
plies.  Wherever  he  was  a  guest,  children  were  much 
drawn  to  him.  I  have  before  me  a  letter  written  by  him 
to  Miss  Ashurst  Biggs,  at  the  house  of  whose  father  he 
was  entertained,  when  she  was  about  nine  years  of  age. 
It  was  written  in  reply  to  one  from  her,  and  is  on  a 
large  sheet  surmounted  by  an  engraving  of  Scarborough 
Castle.  "I  have  been  travelling  in  Yorkshire,  and 
seeing  many  towns  and  curiosities,  York  Minster  and 
Scarborough  Castle,  and  many  other  things  ;  among 
other  things  a  great  cave  at  Flamborough  Head.  I 
stayed  in  it  listening  to  the  roar  of  the  ocean  until  the 
tide  rose  and  the  sea  came  in,  and  drove  me  and  my 
friend  out  at  the  low  passage  at  the  other  end,  since 
nobody  is  admitted  when  the  tide  is  in  except  the 
fishes."  He  copies  two  verses  written  to  him  by  his 
little  daughter,  and  concludes  with  the  words,  "Fare 
well,  my  dear  child." 

Emerson's  picture  of  childhood  in  one  of  his  London 
lectures  is  remembered  by  some  who  heard  it  as  un 
equalled  for  its  charm.  His  own  childlikeness  was  felt 


EMERSON    IN   ENGLAND.  337 

also  by  those  who  met  him  personally ;  but  to  others 
his  reputation  for  that  "  clean  intellect,"  for  ^hich 
Carlyle  said  Emerson  had  not  his  equal  on  the  planet, 
carried  a  certain  awe.  On  one  occasion,  in  London, 
he  was  told  of  a  young  man  who  wished  to  see  him, 
but,  added  the  informant,  "  he's  afraid  of  you."  "  So 
am  I  afraid  of  him  ;  let  him  come  !  "  One  lady  said 
he  was  a  man  to  be  approached  after  fasting  and  pray 
er.  A  lady  of  Coventry,  daughter  of  an  orthodox 
minister,  told  me  that  Carlyle  appeared  to  many  in 
that  day  as  Emerson's  John  the  Baptist  at  best ;  for 
they  had  been  troubled  by  the  ridicule  of  philanthropy 
that  came  from  Chelsea.  The  evangelical  were  im 
pressed  by  finding  this  heretic  not  a  man  of  the  world, 
like  Voltaire  and  Gibbon,  but  one  whose  "  righteous 
ness  exceeded  that  of  the  orthodox." 

Emerson  had  read  with  much  interest  a  work  by 
Charles  Bray,  the  "Philosophy  of  Necessity,"  and 
this  led  to  a  brief  but  memorable  visit  to  Coventry.  I 
am  indebted  to  Miss  Sarah  Hennell  for  a  letter  written 
to  her  by  her  sister,  Mrs.  Bra}',  July  16,  1848,  imme 
diately  after  this  visit:  "Yes,  we  have  had  the  great 
spirit  amongst  us,  and  I  feel  as  you  do  how  much 
greater  his  thoughts,  which  we  had  before,  have  be 
come  from  the  corroboration  they  have  received  from 
his  presence.  I  have  quite  a  grateful  feeling  that  he 
has  been  under  this  roof,  though  only  for  a  few  hours  ; 
but,  alas  !  we  shall  see  his  face  no  more  !  He  is  roll 
ing  on  the  waves  now  towards  home.  He  said  his 
wife  insisted  on  being  on  the  shore  to  meet  him,  though 
they  live  twenty  miles  inland.  He  was  taking  a  rock 
ing-horse  for  his  two  little  girls,  and  a  crossbow  for  his 


338  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

son ;  and  his  eyes  quite  sparkled  when  he  spoke  of 
how  much  they  would  be  grown  in  these  nine  months. 
My  head  was  full  of  the  preparations  for  our  great 
juvenile  fete  on  Thursday,  when  Emerson's  letter  came 
to  say  he  should  be  here  at  midnight,  to  stay  only  till 
Wednesday  afternoon.  So  I  ran  upstairs  to  put  the 
best  room  in  order,  and  directly  after  in  came  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Flower  and  Kate  Marti neau.  Of  course  they 
wanted  to  see  Emerson  above  all  things,  and  had  in 
vited  him  to  Stratford.  Charles  went  to  meet  him  at 
the  station.  He  looked  round  the  drawing-room  and 
said,  '  Coventry  is  a  very  nice  place  ; '  and  the  next 
morning  was  so  easy  and  pleasant  that  I  wondered 
where  all  my  awe  had  gone  to.  He  talked  about  In 
dian  mytholog}r  and  Stonehenge.  After  breakfast  in 
walked  the  Flowers  again.  They  had  set  off  at  five, 
and  came  to  propose  taking  him  back  with  them  to 
Stratford,  as  they  had  found  a  note  from  him,  on 
reaching  home,  expressing  a  wish  to  '  see  Shakes 
peare.'  We  were  rather  disconcerted,  as  Mary  Ann 
(Miss  Evans)  had  just  come,  and  we  meant  to  have  a 
nice  quiet  day  all  to  ourselves.  But,  however,  it  was 
plain  Emerson  wished  to  see  Stratford,  and  we  all 
thought  it  right  he  should ;  so  we  all  set  off  together 
by  train  to  Leamington,  then  in  cars  to  Stratford ;  and 
had  a  most  delightful  ride,  we  four  in  an  open  carriage 
from  Stratford  again.  This  was  the  pleasantest  part 
of  the  day  to  us,  and  he  talked  as  if  we  had  been  old 
friends.  He  was  much  struck  with  Mary  Ann  (Miss 
Evans)  :  expressed  his  admiration  many  times  to 
Charles  — '  That  young  lady  has  a  calm  serious  soul.' 
He  regretted  very  much  he  had  no  more  time  to  stay 


EMERSON    IX    ENGLAND.  339 

amongst  us.  He  came  home  to  tea  with  us.  And  so 
he  departed,  with  much  warmth  pressing  Charles  to  go 
and  see  him  in  America.  It  is  well  for  us  a  great  be 
nign  soul  does  not  often  come  to  disgust  us  with  com 
mon  life.  No,  that's  a  very  false  sentiment :  common 
life  would  not  be  common  then.  It  was  a  comfort  the 
next  day  to  find  that  Hannah  had  been  providing  the 
needful  for  common  life  while  we  had  been  soaring 
aloft,  and  that  the  cakes  were  made  ready  for  the  chil 
dren  at  night.  The  fete  was  most  successful.  We 
had  a  fiddle  and  flute  to  make  music,  and  they  danced 
on  the  grass." 

To  this  charming  account  of  a  visit  which  Emer 
son  remembered  with  pleasure,  I  add  a  sentence  from 
Mrs.  Bray's  notebook:  "  If  the  law  of  love  and  jus 
tice  have  once  entered  our  hearts,  why  need  we  seek 
any  other?"  —  Emerson  (as  he  sat  in  the  drawing- 
room  window,  July  12,  1848). 

Emerson  remembered  well  that  visit  to  the  Brays 
at  Rosehill,  when  he  sat  with  them  under  the  beau 
tiful  acacia,  and  talked  with  Charles  Bray  on  the 
"Philosophy  of  Necessity,"  which  had  reached  him 
in  Concord  and  spoke  to  his  mind.  George  Eliot 
was  then  Miss  Evans  of  Birdgrove,  where  Emerson's 
essays  were  among  her  friends  in  loneliness.  When 
Emerson  had  talked  a  few  moments  with  her  he  sud 
denly  said,  "What  one  book  do  you  like  best?" 
She  instantly  answered,  "Rousseau's  Confessions." 
He  started,  then  said,  "So  do  I.  There  is  a  point 
of  sympathy  between  us."  George  Eliot  cherished 
the  remembrance  of  meeting  Emerson  under  these 
happy  auspices,  and  also  in  London,  where  she  played 


340  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

the  piano  at  evening,  in  Dr.  Chapman's  house,  with 
out  perhaps  knowing  that  Emerson's  ear  for  such 
music  was  what  he  used  to  call  "  marble." 

It  was  wonderful  to  me,  when  I  was  starting  for 
England,  to  find  how  Emerson  bore  in  mind  the  in 
dividual  traits  of  the  people  he  had  met  during  his 
sojourn  abroad ;  and  even  in  1875,  when  his  memory 
was  already  failing,  he  asked  me  questions  about 
some  of  them.  He  remembered  the  attention  that 
Sophia  Collet  had  paid  to  his  lectures,  and  was  hap 
py  when  I  was  able  to  tell  him  that  invalidism  had 
not  been  able  to  quench  the  sunshine  his  works  had 
brought  into  her  study.  The  extent  to  which  Emer 
son's  thought  influenced  English  freethinkers  was 
largely  due  to  this  lady,  at  that  time,  under  the 
name  u  Panthea,"  the  most  scholarly  writer  in  the 
"  Reasoner."  "In  the  clear  morning  light  in  which 
he  bathes  us,"  she  wrote  in  that  paper,  "we  feel 
that  all  the  accustomed  solutions  of  the  mystery  of 
human  existence  are  but  degrading  caricatures,  which 
shall  never  again  impose  on  us  ;  and  that  the  realities, 
even  the  (at  present)  inexplicable  ones,  which  now 
come  forth  to  view,  are  more  sacred,  more  dear,  and 
more  inspiring  than  all  the  Christianities  of  Europe, 
Asia,  Africa,  and  America,  which  do  but  belong  to 
them  as  one  year's  blossoms  belong  to  the  root  from 
which  they  spring." 

Carlyle's  best  insight  into  Emerson's  first  essays  was 
that  which  found  a  fresh  and  new  country  in  them. 
"A  breath  as  of  the  green  country  —  all  the  welcomer 
that  it  is  New  England  country,  not  second-hand  but 
first-hand  country  —  meets  us  wholesomely  everywhere 


EMERSON    IN    ENGLAND.  341 

in  these  Essays :  the  authentic  green  earth  is  there, 
with  her  mountains,  rivers,  with  her  mills  and  farms. " 
This  was  a  potent  charm  of  his  lectures  in  England. 
Wherever  he  went  or  spoke,  this  new  world  travelled 
with  him  and  surrounded  him  while  he  spoke.  His  in 
difference  to  theology,  his  aversion  to  controversy,  his 
affirmative  tone,  all  seemed  to  come  from  a  land 
where  old  dogmas  and  conventions  were  unknown.  He 
uttered  destructive  generalisations  of  the  most  startling 
character  as  truisms,  and  swept  creeds  and  institutions 
out  of  his  path  unconsciously,  without  any  tone  of 
radicalism.  He  might  have  been  the  original  of 
the  man  of  the  future  painted  by  Weirtz  at  Brussels, 
examining  with  a  smile  the  banners,  guns,  and  crowns 
of  the  present  time,  held  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 
Caiiyle  once  told  of  a  man  he  found  reading  Emerson, 
as  he  rested  from  toil  and  looking  out  over  the  sea.  It 
was  that  westward  look  which  carried  so  many  agitat 
ed  minds  to  New  England,  and  no  doubt  Emerson 
foresaw  the  disappointment  of  many  of  them  when  he 
reserved  his  sympathy  with  the  social  dreams  of  Good- 
wyn  Barmby.  There  were  enough  visionary  Ameri 
cans  drawing  Englishmen  to  their  country  with  fanciful 
pictures,  one  of  whom  Herman  Melville  portrayed  in 
his  "  Confidence-Man,"  who,  in  his  blended  "  shrewd 
ness  and  mythiness,"  seemed  a  kind  of  "cross  between 
a  Yankee  pedlar  and  a  Tartar  priest."  Emerson 
probably  never  tried  to  persuade  any  one  to  settle 
in  America,  except  Carlyle  ;  and  his  word  to  English 
youth  would  have  been  that  of  Goethe,  u  Your  Ameri 
ca  is  here  or  nowhere."  His  best  influence  in  England 
has  been,  and  is,  represented  by  those  whom  he  in- 


342  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

spired  to  build  a  new  and  better  world  around  them. 
And  of  these  it  has  been  my  lot  to  know  and  hear  of 
many.  The  world  knows  what  he  has  been  to  Tyndall, 
who  still  cherishes  the  little  volume  he  picked  up  in  a 
bookstall.  The  Emersonian  sermon  in  Kingsley's 
"Alton  Locke,"  the  sonnet  of  Matthew  Arnold,  the 
letters  of  Clough,  and  the  writings  of  Quinet,  Max 
Miiller,  Herman  Grimm,  Allingham,  Ruskin,  and  many 
another,  attest  how  much  he  has  been  to  the  best  Eu 
ropean  teachers.  But  his  influence  has  been  as  great 
in  other  than  literary  directions.  When  he  was  last  in 
England,  a  philanthropic  man,  a  Lord  Mayor,  asked 
to  be  introduced  to  Emerson,  because,  when  he  was  a 
poor  youth,  the  essay  on  Self-Reliance  stimulated  his 
energies  and  gave  him  his  start  to  success.  The  late 
Dr.  Lankester,  coroner  of  London,  similarly  regarded 
Emerson  as  the  chief  influence  in  his  life,  and  when  he 
died,  there  was  found  in  his  pocket  a  well-pencilled 
copy  of  the  Essays,  which  had  been  his  companion 
through  many  years.  Other  similar  instances  have 
been  related  to  me. 

After  Emerson's  return  from  his  visit  to  England  of 
1847-8,  he  gave  a  lecture  upon  "  The  English  People," 
in  New  York,  at  the  close  of  which  he  said  that  the 
fabulous  St.  George  was  not  the  true  emblem  of  the 
national  character.  He  saw  it  rather  in  the  lawgiver, 
scholar,  poet,  mechanic,  monarch,  Alfred ;  in  later 
times,  in  Cromwell;  and  in  one  not  so  well  known, 
William  of  Wykeham,  the  builder  of  Windsor  Castle, 
a  bishop  of  Winchester,  a  putter-down  of  abuses  in 
his  time  in  his  own  diocese.  He  founded  a  school 
at  Winchester  for  seventy  scholars  for  ever ;  he  en- 


EMERSON   IN   ENGLAND.  343 

dowed  a  college  at  Oxford  for  seventy  fellows  for  ever  ; 
and  he  established  a  house  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Winchester  to  provide  a  measure  of  beer  and  a  suffi 
ciency  of  bread  to  every  one  who  asked  it  for  ever. 
Emerson  was  curious  to  test  this  good  man's  credit, 
and  knocked  at  the  door,  preferred  his  request,  and 
received  his  measure  of  beer  and  bread,  though  its 
donor  had  been  dead  seven  hundred  years  ! 

When  Emerson  was  last  in  England  there  was  much 
desire  that  he  should  give  lectures  at  the  Royal  Insti 
tution  and  at  Oxford.  This,  however,  he  declined. 
His  only  public  appearance  in  England  was  at  the 
Working-Men's  College  in  London,  Thomas  Hughes 
being  beside  him.  That  extemporaneous  address  I 
heard,  and  when  he  spoke  of  the  "  pathetically  noble" 
effort  of  English  scholars  to  educate  their  humbler 
brethren,  there  was  before  us  another  "pathetically 
noble"  sight  in  the  figure  of  the  white-haired  sage 
beaming  his  last  farewell,  and  uttering  his  last  animat 
ing  word  to  the  class  that  received  him  as  prophet  at 
the  dawn  of  a  closing  generation. 

When  tidings  came  that  Emerson's  house  was  burnt 
down  there  was  a  strong  desire  in  England  to  help  to 
rebuild  it.  "  Will  you  please  say,"  he  wrote  me,  "  to 
any  such  benevolent  friend,  that  whilst  I  am  surprised 
and  gratified  at  such  a  good-will,  I  will  have  no  such 
thing  done,  as  my  friends  at  home  have  already  taken 
care  to  more  than  indemnify  me  for  my  material  losses 
by  the  fire.  Not  the  less  hearty  thanks  to  these  Eng 
lish  friends." 

In  the  spring  of  1873,  when  Emerson  was  on  his  way 
from  the  South  to  England,  I  had  also  to  convey  to 


344  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

him  a,  request  to  accept  a  banquet  in  London,  but  this 
he  declined.  "  I  desire  to  thank  them  heartily  for 
their  generous  good-will,  but  say  to  them  that  they 
must  forgive  me  for  declining  the  banquet,  much  pre 
ferring  to  meet  new  and  old  friends  on  more  simple  and 
private  terms."  This  note  was  written  from  Paris, 
March  31,  and  at  the  close  of  the  week  Emerson  was 
in  London. 

To  observe  the  various  men  that  gathered  around 
Emerson  in  England,  one  might  say  that  concord,  as  a 
virtue,  was  organised  in  and  around  the  Sage  of  Con 
cord.  Carlyle,  Dean  Stanley ;  Professors  Tyndall, 
Newman,  Huxley,  Carpenter,  Sayce,  Ruskin ;  Alex 
ander  Ellis,  J.  A.  Fronde,  Lord  Honghton,  Allingham, 
Edward  Sterling,  the  Amberleys,  Prince  Leopold,  Max 
Miiller  (with  whom  he  stayed  in  Oxford) ,  these,  and 
many  others,  gathered  around  him  with  fraternal  or 
filial  devotion,  and  would  have  had  him  pass  the  rest 
of  his  life  in  their  homes.  He  visited  the  Irelands  at 
Manchester,  Dr.  William  Smith  and  other  friends  in 
Edinburgh,  Lord  and  Lady  Ambeiiey  at  Tintern,  and 
the  Crawshays  at  Cyfarthfa  Castle.  He  also  visited 
again  the  Flowers  at  Stratford-on-Avon. 

His  eldest  daughter  accompanied  him  on  this  jour 
ney,  and  was  already  beginning  to  be  needed  as  "  his 
memory."  In  meeting  with  new  persons  his  failing 
memory  was  noticeable,  but  his  friends  of  twenty-five 
year  before  thought  him  even  nobler  and  sweeter  than 
in  the  old  times.  It  was  during  this  last  visit,  I  sup 
pose,  that  Emerson  visited  Stratford  Church  with  James 
Walter  on  a  Sunday  morning,  and  remained  beside 
Shakespeare's  grave  during  the  service  and  sermon. 


EMERSON   IN   ENGLAND.  345 

The  Englishman  was  ashamed  of  the  sermon,  and  re 
lieved  when  Emerson  asked  naively,  "Did  he  preach?" 
To  which  his  English  friend  answered,  "Who  ?  Shakes 
peare?"  "Yes!  " 

My  wife  and  I  had  the  pleasure  of  being  guests  with 
him  and  his  daughter  at  Cyfarthfa  Castle  (Merthyr  Tyd- 
fil) .  Mrs.  Crawshay  told  me  that  she  was  afraid  such 
a  devotee  of  nature  might  not  enjoy  her  forced  straw 
berries,  and  rather  evaded  his  question  concerning  their 
season  in  Wales.  The  Welsh  spring  might  well  break 
forth  into  earlier  strawberries  in  honour  of  his  visit.  At 
a  dinner-party  given  at  Cyfarthfa  Castle  the  most  culti 
vated  people  of  the  neighbourhood  were  invited,  but 
among  them  was  a  gentleman  more  familiar  with  the 
antiquities  of  Wales  than  with  Emerson.  At  any  rate, 
after  the  ladies  had  retired,  when  Emerson  asked  him 
whether  traces  of  Merlin  in  his  prison  of  air  survived 
in  the  neighbourhood,  he  said,  Yes,  but  that  he  had 
passed  the  place  at  all  times  and  never  heard  the  leg 
endary  sighs,  nor  did  he  believe  the  story.  "You 
must  be  a  bold  man,"  said  Emerson  in  his  sweetest 
voice,  but  with  the  old  twinkle  in  his  eye. 

In  Wales  I  had  opportunities  of  walking  alone  with 
Emerson,  and  conversing  with  him  on  those  great  sub 
jects  which  had  been  the  theme  of  his  teaching  in  the 
sacred  years  at  Concord.  I  discovered,  however,  that 
he  had  become  more  inclined  than  formerly  to  hesitate 
about  stating  religious  opinions.  These  opinions  he 
declared  unchanged  since  we  had  conversed  in  former 
years.  He  was  even  more  optimistic  after  twenty 
years,  and  advised  me  to  trust  more  to  time  than  de 
structive  criticism  in  the  combat  with  error.  He  held 


346  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

his  old  sentiment  about  prayer,  and  said,  "  If  I  saw  a 
man  on  his  knees,  I  should  not  like  to  tell  that  man  to 
get  up."  Even  the  attitude  of  reverence  for  something 
above  self  he  thought  to  be  of  some  value,  and  sug 
gested  that  it  was  a  sort  of  witness  against  the  notion 
of  mediation. 

Max  Miiller  dedicated  his  work  on  the  "  Science  of 
Religion"  to  "Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  in  memory  of 
his  visit  to  Oxford  in  May,  1873,  and  in  acknowledg 
ment  of  constant  refreshment  of  head  and  heart  de 
rived  from  his  writings  during  the  last  twenty-five 
years." 

Emerson's  friends  in  England  "marked  round  with 
vermilion  "  that  festal  year  when  he  visited  the  homes 
he  had  made  nobler  and  happier ;  and  many  were  the 
children  brought  to  him  that  they  might  say  to  their 
children  and  children's  children,  "  This  hand  has  been 
kept  purer  because  it  was  once  touched  by  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson." 


THE    DIADEM   OF   DAYS.  347 


XXIX. 

THE  DIADEM  OF  DAY 

SOME   years  ago  Emerson  was  asked  by  a  friend 
which  of  his  own  poems  he  most  valued.     He  re 
plied,  "  Days."     This  piece  of  eleven  lines,  as  printed 
in   "May-Day,"  begins  "Damsels  of  Time  ;"    but  I 
prefer  the  original  word. 

u  Daughters  of  Time,  the  hypocritic  Days, 
Muffled  and  dumb  like  barefoot  dervishes, 
And  inarching  single  in  an  endless  file, 
Bring  diadems  and  fagots  in  their  hands. 
To  each  they  offer  gifts  after  his  will. 
Bread,  kingdoms,  stars,  and  sky  that  holds  them  all. 
I,  in  my  pleached  garden,  watched  the  pomp, 
Forgot  my  morning  wishes,  hastily 
Took  a  few  herbs  and  apples,  and  the  Day 
Turned  and  departed  silent.     I,  too  late, 
Under  her  solemn  fillet  saw  the  scorn." 

Rare  if  not  imaginary  must  have  been  the  "day" 
that  did  not  bear  fruit  in  Emerson's  garden.  Let  us 
record  here  the  list  of  his  works  :  — 

Right  Hand  of  Fellowship  at  the  Ordination  of  II.  B. 

Goodwin.     February  17,  1830. 
Sermon  and  Letter,  to  the  Second  Church,  Boston.    1832. 

(Reprinted  in  u  Frothingham's  Transcendentalism," 

1876.) 


348  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

Historical  Discourse  delivered  before  the  Citizens  of  Con 
cord,  12th  September,  1835,  on  the  Second  Centennial 
Anniversary  of  the  Incorporation  of  the  Town.     Con 
cord,  1835  (reprinted  1875). 
Nature.     Boston,  1836. 

Carlyle's  "  Sartor  Resartus,"  edited  in  conjunction  with 
Le  Baron  Russell.  Introduction  by  Emerson.  Bos 
ton,  1836. 

Michael  Angelo.     "  North  American  Review."    1837. 
Milton.     "  North  American  Review.'     1838. 
Letter  to  President  Van  Buren  (concerning  certain  wrongs 
of  the  Cherokee  Indians).     '"National  Intelligencer.'1' 
Washington.  1838. 
Address    before    the   Senior  Class  in    Divinity  College. 

Cambridge,  July  15,  1838. 
Carlyle's  Critical  and  Miscellaneous  Essays.     (Edited.) 

Boston,  1838. 

"  The  Dial."    Boston,  1840-44.    Emerson's  contributions 
are:  — Vol.   I.—  No.  1,  "  The  Editors  to  the  Reader," 
"The  Problem"  (a  poem) ;  No.  2,  "Thoughts  on 
Modern  Literature,"  "  New  Poetry,"  u  Woodnotes  " 
(poem)  ;  No.  3,  "  The  Sphinx"  (poem),  u  Thoughts 
on  Art;  "  No.  4,  "  Man  the  Reformer." 
Vol.  II. —No.  2,  "Painting  and  Sculpture,"    "Fate" 
(poem),  "Walter  Savage  Landor;"    No.  3,  "The 
Senses  and  the  Soul." 

Vol.  III.  — No.  1,  "Lectures  on  the  Times,"  "Tact." 
"Holidays"  (poems),  "Prayers,"  "  Fourierism  and 
the  Socialists."  "Chardon  Street  and  Bible  Conven 
tion;"  No.  2,  "  Lectures  on  the  Times"  ("The 
Conservative,"  "  English  Reformers  "),  •'  Saadi  " 
(poem);  No.  3,  "Lectures  on  the  Times"  ("The 
Transcendentalist"),  "  Literary  Intelligence ;"  No. 
4,  "Europe  and  European  Books." 
Vol.  IV. —  No.  ],  "Past  and  Present,"  "To  Rhea " 
(poem)  ;  No.  2,  "  The  Comic,"  "  Ode  to  Beauty," 
-A  Letter;"  No.  3,  "Tantalus,"  "Eros,"  "The 


THE    DIADEM    OF    DAYS.  349 

Times''  (poem);  No.  4,  "  The  Tragic,''  "  The 
Young  American,"  "The  Visit"  (poem). 

Essays.  First  Series.  (12.)  Boston,  1841.  (With 
Preface  by  Carlyle.  London,  1841.) 

Obituary  Notice  of  Ezra  Ripley,  D.D.  "  Concord  Repub 
lican,"  October  1,  1841. 

Carlyle's  t;  Past  and  Present  "  (edited).     Boston,  1843. 

Essays.     Second  Series.     (9.)     Boston,  1844. 

Address  delivered  in  Concord,  August  1 ,  1844,  on  the  An 
niversary  of  the  Emancipation  of  Negroes  in  the  Brit 
ish  West  Indies.  Boston,  1844.  (Reprinted  in  "  The 
Dial,"  Cincinnati,  November  and  December,  1860.) 

Editors'  Address — To  the  Public.  First  number  of  the 
Massachusetts  "  Quarterly  Review."  1847. 

Poems.     Boston,  1847. 

War  — Miss  Peabody's  ^Esthetic  Papers.     Boston,  1849. 

Nature  —  Addresses  and  Lectures.     Boston,  1849. 

Representative  Men.  Boston,  1850.  (Translated  into 
Danish  by  Thorson,  and  published  at  Copenhagen, 
1857). 

Memoirs  of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli.  (Chapters  on  Marga 
ret  in  Concord  and  in  Boston.)  Boston,  1852. 

English  Traits.  Boston,  1856.  (Translated  by  Spielhagen. 
Hanover,  1857.) 

Samuel  lloar.     "  Putnam's  Magazine,"  December,  1856. 

The  Chartist's  Complaint  (poem).  4i  Atlantic  Monthly," 
November,  1857. 

The  Rommany  Girl.  "Atlantic  Monthly."  1858.  In 
same  year  and  magazine,  the  poems  "  Days,"  "  Brah 
ma,"  "Two  Rivers,"  "Waldensamkeit,"  and  essays  on 
"  Illusions,"  "  Solitude  and  Society,"  "  Books,"  "  Per 
sian  Poetry,"  and  "  Eloquence." 

The  Sacred  Dance.  From  the  Persian.  Printed  in  "  The 
Dial,''  Cincinnati,  January,  1860. 

Quatrains.  (12.)  Cincinnati  "  Dial,"  February  and  March, 
1860. 

Domestic  Life.  Printed  in  "  The  Dial,"  Cincinnati,  Octo 
ber,  1860. 


350  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

Speeches  concerning  John  Brown.  (At  Boston,  Novem 
ber  18,  1859 ;  at  Concord,  December  2 ;  at  Salem,  Jan 
uary  G,  1860.)  "  Echoes  of  Harper's  Ferry,"  1860. 

Culture.  "  Atlantic  Monthly."  1860.  Also  the  "  Song 
of  Nature." 

Conduct  of  Life.  .  Boston,  1860. 

The  Test  (poem).     "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  January.  1861. 

American  Civilisation.     "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  April,  1861. 

Old  Age.  "  Atlantic  Monthly."  1862.  In  same  year  and 
magazine,  u  The  Titmouse"  and  "  Compensation  " 
(poems). 

Thoreau.  kt  Atlantic  Monthly,"  August,  1862.  (Preface 
to  Thoreau's  u  Excursions,"  edited  by  Emerson.  1866.) 

The  President's  Proclamation.  *•  Atlantic  Monthly,"  No 
vember,  1862. 

The  Boston  Hymn.  Read  in  Boston  Music  Hall,  New 
Year's  Day,  1863.  "  Atlantic  Monthly."  1863. 

Voluntaries.     "  Atlantic  Monthly."    1863. 

Saadi.     "  Atlantic  Monthly."    1864. 

Gulistan,  or  Rose  Garden  of  Saadi.  (Gladwin's  transla 
tion,  edited  by  Emerson,  with  preliminary  essay  on 
Persian  Poetry.)  Boston,  1865. 

Remarks  at  the  Funeral  Services  of  the  President  (Lincoln) 
at  Concord.  April  19,  1865.  Boston:  u  Living  Age," 
May  13,  1865. 

Thoreau's  Letters  (edited).     Boston,  1865. 

My  Garden.     -  Atlantic  Monthly."     1866. 

Character.     "  North  American  Review."    1866. 

Terminus.     "  Atlantic  Monthly."    1867. 

Address  at  a  Meeting  to  Organise  the  "  Free  Religious 
Association."  1867. 

Aspects  of  Culture.  Phi  Beta  Kapa  Address  at  Harvard 
University,  1867.  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  January,  1868. 

May-Day,  and  other  pieces.    Boston,  1867. 

Address  before  the  kt>  Free  Religious  Association."  Pro 
ceedings  of  Second  Annual  Meeting.  1869. 

Society  and  Solitude.  Boston,  1870.  (Haarlem,  trans 
lated  into  Dutch  by  Augusta  Pease.) 


THE    DIADEM    OF   DAYS.  351 

Introduction  to  Goodwin's  edition  of  Plutarch's  iv  Morals." 
Boston,  1870. 

Preface  to  W.  E.  Channing's  poem,  "  The  Wanderer." 
Boston,  1871. 

Speech  at  Howard  University.    Washington,  1872. 

Address  at  the  Opening  of  Concord  Free  Public  Library. 
1873. 

Verses  quoted  in  W.  E.  Channing's  "  Thoreau."    1873. 

Address  at  Unveiling  of  the  "  Minute  Man  "  Monument  on 
the  Hundredth  Anniversary  of  the  Concord  Fight, 
April  19, 1875. 

Select  Poems.  Boston,  1876.  (Containing  several  not  in 
previous  volumes.) 

Letters  and  Social  Aims.     Boston,  1S7G. 

Parnassus.  A  volume  of  choice  poems  selected  from  the 
whole  range  of  English  Literature,  by  Emerson,  with 
a  prefatory  Essay.  Boston,  1874. 

Demonology.     ''North  American  Review."     1877. 

Perpetual  Forces.     "  North  American  Review."    1877. 

Fortune  of  the  Republic.  Lecture  given  at  Old  South 
Church,  Boston,  March  30,  1878. 

The  Sovereignty  of  Ethics.  "  North  American  Review." 
1878. 

The  Preacher.  (Originally  written  as  a  parlour  lecture  to 
some  divinity  students  in  1807 ;  afterwards  enlarged 
from  earlier  writings  and  read  in  the  chapel  of  Divin 
ity  College,  Harvard  University,  May  5, 1879.)  "  Uni 
tarian  Review.'  1879. 

Preface  to  "  One  Hundred  Greatest  Men."    London,  1879. 

Paper  on  Carlyle  read  before  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society.  "  Scribner's  Magazine."  1881. 

Superlatives.     "  The  Century."    February,  1882. 

But  these  books  do  not  represent  all  the  diadems 
and  fagots  that  Emerson  received  from  his  days. 
For  he  distributed  them  far  and  wide  ;  they  are  the 
treasure  and  strength  of  innumerable  hearts  and 


352  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

homes.  One  day  as  we  walked  in  that  garden  he 
gave  me  a  plum,  saying,  4'  At  its  best  it  is  the  fruit  of 
paradise."  Such  indeed  I  found  it;  the  light  and 
warmth  of  many  days  were  garnered  in  the  lustrous 
fruit,  and  the  last  subtle  touch  of  its  perfection  was 
added  by  the  ripening  beam  in  the  giver's  eye.  The 
divine  genius  was  in  all  his  herbs  and  apples,  and  al 
though  he  might  put  on  the  mask  of  the  Days,  and 
veil  his  gifts  in  casual  humourous  phrase,  his  every 
word  and  action  were  of  the  organic  beauty  of  his  na 
ture.  Such  gifts  as  he  had  could  not  be  given,  any 
more  than  those  of  the  Days,  except  to  enterprise. 

It  may  seem  a  light  thing  that  Emerson  should  give 
me  a  plum  in  his  garden  and  call  it  the  fruit  of  para 
dise.  It  was  lightly  said  and  done  ;  nevertheless  I  be 
gan  to  realise  that  the  secret  of  wisdom  is  to  be  able 
to  recognise  the  day  while  it  is  shining,  as  it  will  be 
recognised  in  the  long  perspective  of  memory,  and 
every  day  that  I  was  able  to  bear  that  in  mind,  while 
with  Emerson,  brought  its  plum.  Some  of  these  are 
gathered  in  this  chapter  of  further  personal  recollec 
tions. 

"  The  Day  cannot  be  known  to  the  Day,"  says 
Goethe.  But  Emerson  shewed  us  that  it  can  be.  When 
did  he  learn  this  art  of  living  out  all  his  days  ?  I  have 
already  told  of  one  who  in  his  youth  drove  with  Emer 
son  on  Sunday  to  his  appointment  at  East  Lexington 
and  heard  him  repeat  George  Herbert's  hymn,  "  Sweet 
day  !  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright."  Twenty  years  later 
he  used  to  teach  us  along  the  same  road  that  every  day 
is  a  splendour  of  opportunity,  and  that  immortality  is 
but  a  verbal  counter  unless  it  be  an  instant  experience. 


THE    DIADEM    OF    DAYS.  353 

"  Deb  Socco  hopes  that  her  Deb  Soccoism  will  last  for 
ever.  She  should  be  encouraged  to  get  rid  of  her  Deb 
Soccoism."  "An  actually  existent  fly  is  more  import 
ant  than  a  possibly  existent  angel."  This  last  was 
said  in  reference  to  some  new  speculation  in  eschatol- 
ogy.  "When  I  talked  with  Coleridge  and  others 
about  immortality,  it  soon  became  slain  that  they  had 
nothing  to  say  equal  to  Plato's  phaBdo.'  Their  talk 
was  only  a  fine  apology  for  nability  to  help  me  where 
I  desired  help,  and  so  you  would  find  any  opinion  of 
my  own  if  I  should  give  it  you  to-day.  But  of  what 
use  were  even  the  certainty  of  an  eternity  of  days 
until  we  have  learned  how  to  realise  the  fulness  of 
one  ?  Eternity  is  not  duration.  The  artist  said  pingo 
in  ceternitatem,  and  this  ceternitatem,  if  I  paint  for  it,  is 
already  mine." 

In  every  way  possible,  and  with  every  hint,  did  our 
loving  teacher  try  to  save  us  from  delusions  that  might 
defraud  us  of  our  lives  ;  if  any  one  nodded  and  fell 
into  teleology,  Emerson's  eye  was  sure  to  be  caught  at 
that  moment  by  a  curious  wildflower,  or  unique  grass 
blade,  or  a  spider's  web  in  which  our  speculative  fledg 
ling  was  softly  enmeshed.  But  the  great  instruction 
was  that  he  made  our  day  so  beautiful  and  so  lumin 
ous  that  it  seemed  always  festal  when  he  was  near, 
and  one's  heart  spake  as  Glauco  to  Socrates,  "  The 
whole  of  life,  O  Teacher,  is  the  measure  of  hearing 
such  discourse  as  thine." 

It  was  afternoon  when  I  first  met  Emerson,  but 
the  morning  was  in  his  face  as  he  welcomed  me. 
He  was  now  fifty  years  of  age,  but  seemed  younger ; 
his  manner  was  cordial  and  simple,  and  his  voice 


354  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

at  once  relieved  me  of  the  trembling  with  which  I  stood 
before  him  — the  first  great  man  I  had  ever  seen.  (I 
had  seen,  however,  the  President  and  Senators  whose 
names  were  upon  the  tongue  of  the  nation.)  Mrs. 
Emerson  sent  in  an  invitation  that  I  should  dine  with 
them.  Afterwards  he  took  me  on  a  walk ;  and  while 
he  was  preparing  I  had  an  opportunity  of  looking 
around  his  library.  Over  the  mantelpiece  hung  his 
"  Parcae  :  "  on  it  was  a  statuette  of  Goethe,  of  whom 
there  was  an  engraved  portrait  on  the  walls,  also  por 
traits  of  Shakespeare,  Swedenborg,  and  Montaigne. 
Afterwards  Emerson  shewed  me  a  number  of  other  por 
traits  of  Goethe  which  he  had  collected,  and  severs!  of 
Dante,  including  a  photograph  of  the  Ravenna  mask. 
I  also  remember  a  beautiful  engraving  of  Puck,  flying 
through  the  air  under  the  stars,  whose  light  contrasted 
with  that  in  the  windows  of  a  castle.  The  furniture  of 
the  room  was  old-fashioned  and  simple.  The  shelves 
at  which  I  looked  most  hungrily  were  those  occupied 
by  Emerson's  own  manuscript  lectures  and  essays,  of 
which  there  seemed  to  be  enough  to  fill  many  volumes. 

On  this  first  walk  I^merson  took  me  to  Walden  Water. 
A  crystal  was  the  lakelet  that  day,  in  setting  of  emer 
ald,  clear  and  calm,  the  fit  haunt  of  a  poet.  In  its 
transparent  depths  were  seen  the  fishes,  and  around  it 
sang  many  birds.  In  a  few  moments  we  were  swim 
ming  in  the  sparkling  water. 

Having  bathed,  we  sat  down  on  the  shore,  near  the 
site  of  Thoreau's  vanished  hermitage  ;  then  Walden 
and  its  woods  began  to  utter  their  soft  spells  through 
the  lips  of  my  poet.  Emerson's  conversation  was  dif 
ferent  from  that  of  any  other  I  have  met.  The  contrast 


THE    DIADEM    OF    DAYS.  355 

between  his  talk  and  that  of  Carlyle  was  remarkable. 
Carlyle  was,  in  a  sense,  the  more  striking  figure,  but 
his  manner  and  tone  revived  dreams  of  historic  charac 
ters  ;  one  said,  "  Surely  this  is  Jeremias,"  or  presently 
it  might  be  Diogenes,  Hans  Sachs,  Luther,  or  some 
other  personage  more  or  less  conventionalised  in  the 
imagination.  But  Emerson  suggested  none  other  ;  he 
was  strictly  incomparable,  and  he  never  appeared  to 
speak  what  had  been  thought  or  said  before  that  mo 
ment.  One  always  felt  that  there  was  a  line  around 
Carlyle 's  vehemence  and  wrathful  eloquence ;  there 
was  something  that  stood  for  authority  ;  but  every  word 
of  Emerson  began  wiiere  authority  ended.  Emerson 
was  an  instinctive  artist,  and  never  brought  out  cannon 
to  slay  sparrows.  Every  one  who  has  witnessed  the 
imperial  dignity,  or  felt  the  weight  of  authentic  know 
ledge,  which  characterised  Carlyle' s  conversation  to 
such  an  extent  that  his  slight  utterances  seemed  to 
stand  out  like  pillars  of  Hercules,  must  also  have  felt 
the  earth  tremble,  as  if  under  "  the  hammer  of  Thor" 
(to  remember  an  expression  I  once  heard  Emerson  use 
about  Carlyle)  ;  but  though  the  same  falsehood  might 
be  fatally  smitten  by  our  American,  it  was  by  the  in 
visible,  inaudible  sunstroke,  which  left  the  sky  as  bright 
and  blue  as  before.  Where  general  truths  and  princi 
ples  were  discussed,  whilst  Carlyle  astonished  by  the 
range  of  his  sifted  knowledge,  he  did  not  convey  an 
impression  of  having  originally  thought  out  problems 
involved  in  other  departments  than  his  own  ;  but  the 
mind  of  Emerson  had  no  special  habitat ;  there  was 
scarcely  a  realm  of  science  and  art  in  which  he  could 
not  instruct  the  academies.  I  have  heard  Agassiz  say 


356  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

that  he  preferred  Emerson's  conversation  on  scientific 
subjects  to  that  of  any  man  he  knew.  Monologues, 
like  those  of  Carlyle,  were  impossible  to  Emerson ; 
they  come  of  the  more  viviparous  mind  ;  whereas  Em 
erson's  talk  was  in  phrases  of  which  each  was,  indeed, 
felicitous,  but  more  remarkable  for  its  productiveness 
under  further  thought  and  experience.  An  English 
physician,  a  friend  of  Emerson,  told  me  that  Emerson 
required  a  little  wine  to  make  his  table-talk  perfect. 

1  remember  him  on  that  day  at  Walden  as  Bunyan's 
pilgrim  might  remember  the  Interpreter.  He  listened 
to  some  rough  fishermen  in  boats,  far  out  from  shore, 
calling  to  each  other  about  their  affairs,  remarking  how 
their  voices  were  intoned  by  the  distance  and  the  water 
to  music.  He  pointed  out  some  of  the  Walden  flora, 
and  observing  the  suggestiveness  of  some  shapes,  as 
the  arrowhead,  shewed  that  he  had  already  an  original 
plant-lore.  He  spoke  only  as  occasion  arose,  and  was 
very  gracious  to  me.  There  was  no  need  that  he 
should  talk  ;  simply  to  be  with  him  was  to  me  joy 
enough,  and  I  put  no  questions.  We  were  having 
heated  debates  in  theology  at  the  Divinity  College,  and 
to  leave  them  for  this  presence  was  like  a  plunge  from 
sultry  air  into  Walden.  "I  am  not  much  interested 
in  such  discussions,"  he  said;  "it  does  seem  deplor 
able  that  there  should  be  a  tendency  in  some  people 
to  creeds  which  would  take  man  back  to  the  chimpan 
zee."  "I  have  very  good  grounds  for  being  a  Uni 
tarian  and  a  Trinitarian  too.  I  need  not  nibble  for 
ever  at  one  loaf,  but  eat  it  and  thank  God  for  it,  and 
earn  another."  He  told  me  about  Theodore  Parker, 
who  was  evidently  a  most  picturesque  person  to  him, 


THE    DIADEM    OF    DAYS.  357 

and  I  think  he  compared  him  with  Socrates.  He  also 
had  once  thought  of  building  himself  a  study  out  there 
beside  Waldeu.  But  Thoreau  was  "  not  in  awe  of 
early  tea,  and  could  do  what  others  cannot."  He 
found  in  Thoreau  that  deeper  piety  vulgarly  regarded 
as  impiety,  like  George  Herbert's  sweet  intimacy  with 
his  deity,  "with  whom  he  sometimes  cracks  jokes." 
What  Emerson  once  called  the  "  wailing  sound"  com 
ing  from  the  young  world  struggling  to  free  itself  from 
dogmas,  was  but  faintly  heard  in  woods  melodious 
with  the  faith  and  the  flute  of  Thoreau  ;  but  when 
ever  that  sound  reached  him,  Emerson  felt  grateful 
to  Theodore  Parker.  "It  is  a  comfort  to  remember 
that  there  is  one  sane  voice  amid  the  religious  and 
political  confusions  of  the  country."  He  could  not 
go  to  church,  but  supported  the  village  minister,  be 
cause  "it  is  well  to  have  a  conscientious  man  to  sit 
on  town  committees,  to  be  active  in  the  moral  affairs 
of  the  place,  to  attend  the  sick  and  the  dead."  I  had 
been  indignant  at  a  remark  made  publicly  by  the  said 
minister  (Frost)  about  his  (Emerson's)  utter  hopeless 
ness  when  his  child  died,  but  if  he  had  heard  of  it, 
Emerson  felt  no  resentment,  and  continued  his  support 
to  this  minister  and  his  successors. 

Emerson  often  advised  above  all  things  care  of 
health.  "  Sound  sleep  is  genius,"  he  said.  He  quoted 
Dr.  Johnson's  declaration,  "every  man  is  a  rascal 
when  he  is  sick,"  and  in  his  playful  serious  way  said 
he  thought  it  might  be  true  that  sickness  is  the  result 
of  some  wickedness.  "One  sometimes  suspects  that 
outer  have  something  to  do  with  inner  complaints,  and 
when  one  is  ill,  something  the  devil's  the  matter." 


358  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

He  gave  me  much  counsel  about  books  and  reading. 
It  was,  he  said,  a  great  point  to  get  hold  of  the  right 
book  when  it  was  personally  needed,  and  not  too  soon 
or  too  late.  "The  time  comes  when  one  requires 
quantity  rather  than  quality;"  Goethe  awaits  that. 
Not  everybody  is  old  enough  to  read  the  "Elective 
Affinities."  He  maintained  that  the  best  in  every 
book  is  translatable,  and  that  to  read  foreign  books  in 
the  original  after  they  were  translated,  was  like  swim 
ming  a  river  instead  of  going  over  the  bridge.  It 
might  do  for  an  occasional  exercise.  He  delighted  in 
the  poetical  translations  from  the  German  by  some  of 
his  friends, — J.  S.  Dwight,  Dr.  Frothingham  ;  and, 
especially,  a  few  by  Christopher  P.  Cranch,  whose 
genius  was  highly  valued  by  Emerson,  as  I  need 
hardly  say  to  those  who  have  read  that  charming  book, 
"  The  Bird  and  the  Bell."  He  often  spoke  of  Carlyle 
with  warm  personal  affection,  but  it  was  plain  to  me 
that  the  later  works  of  his  friend  were  regarded  by 
Emerson  as  unhealthy.  When  the  "  Life  of  Friedrich  " 
was  appearing  he  derived  great  benefit  from  it,  and 
wrote  warm  thanks  to  Carlyle  for  each  volume  ;  but 
there  was  some  hesitation  when  it  became  a  question 
whether  any  youth  should  re-enter  the  old  atmosphere 
of  enthusiasm  which  had  surrounded  Carlyle' s  writings. 
As  much  care  was  needed  to  get  at  the  best  in  Car- 
lyle's  book  as  to  get  at  the  heart  of  the  man.  "  When 
I  was  in  England,"  he  said,  "young  men  desired  me 
to  introduce  them  to  Carlyle  ;  but  I  said,  '  Why  will 
you  have  this  vitriol  thrown  over  you  ? ' ' 

In  current  literature,  he  said,  the  really  useful  books 
are  those  that  deal  seriously  with  some  prominent 


THE  DIADEM  OF  DAYS.  359 

point  or  question.  '4  The  interest  of  '  Jane  Eyre,'  for 
instance,  is  that  it  puts  earnestly  sueh  a  question. 
There  are  writers  who  write  much,  and  much  that  is 
not  important,  but  still  shew  ability  to  advance  thought 
at  some  point.  Those  are  the  writers  to  get  hold  of." 
"  These  novels  by  Elizabeth  Shepherd  have  an  interest 
in  the  fact  that  they  shew  powerful  persons  recognising 
character  and  superiority  under  whatever  plain  exte 
rior  or  in  humble  position,  as  in  '  Counterparts.' " 
Talking  of  Browning's  "  Paracelsus  "  he  did  not  think 
Paracelsus  aspired  ;  "  it  is  the  mere  canine  hunger  for 
knowledge  for  the  power  it  gives."  "When  nature 
wants  an  artist,  she  makes  Tennyson,  and  everything 
good  is  artistic."  The  work  of  Tennyson  he  liked 
least  was  "  In  Memoriain."  He  valued  highly  the  ro 
mances  of  George  Borrow,  George  Sand,  and  Manzoni. 
Bat  Emerson  was  rarely  enthusiastic  except  about  cer 
tain  ancient  books,  and  especially  "  scriptures."  "  The 
Bhagavat  Gita  is  of  high  importance,  and  also  the 
Bhagavat  Purana,  —  ah  !  there  is  a  book  to  be  read  on 
one's  knees!  These  Oriental  bibles  are  more  intel 
lectual  than  the  Hebrew  and  Christian,  but  not  so 
fervent."  He  personally  loved  Saadi.  "I  lately 
found  a  charming  story  about  Saadi.  He  was  trav 
elling  on  foot  towards  Damascus,  alone  and  weary. 
Presently  he  overtook  a  boy  travelling  the  same  way, 
and  asked  him  to  point  out  the  road.  The  boy  offered 
to  guide  him  some  distance,  and  in  the  course  of  con 
versation,  Saadi  spoke  of  having  come  from  Persia  and 
from  Schiraz.  '  Schiraz  ! '  exclaimed  the  boy,  '  then 
perhaps  you  can  tell  me  something  of  Sheik  Saadi  who 
resides  there.'  The  other  said,  'I  am  Saadi.'  In- 


3b'0  EMERSON    AT    HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

stantly  the  boy  knelt  and  kissed  the  hem  of  his  skirt 
with  tears,  and  after  that  could  not  be  parted  from 
Saadi,  but  guided  and  served  him  during  all  his  stay 
in  Damascus."  "  Von  Hammer's  '  Redekunste '  is  one 
of  the  precious  books  ;  and  Hafiz,  '  the  tongue  of  the 
secret,'  as  they  called  him, — who,  however,  wants 
translating.  The  Desatir,  or  Book  of  the  Seven 
Prophets,  is  one  of  the  great  collections." 

Careful  readers  of  Walt  Whitman  will  not  wonder 
that  Emerson  should  have  been  the  first  to  greet  him. 
The  Oriental  largeness  and  optimism  which  he  admired 
in  ancient  books  are  not  to  be  found  in  any  modern 
page  except  that  of  Walt  Whitman.  There  was  an 
outcry  when  Emerson's  enthusiastic  letter  to  Walt 
Whitman  was  published,  and  some  friends  wrote  to 
him  of  misfortunes  he  had  led  them  into  by  inducing 
them  to  try  reading  the  "  Leaves  of  Grass  "  aloud  in 
the  presence  of  ladies.  Emerson  agreed  that  if  he  had 
known  his  letter  to  Walt  Whitman  would  be  published, 
he  might  have  made  some  deductions  from  his  praise. 
"  There  are  parts  of  the  book  where  I  hold  my  nose  as 
I  read.  One  must  not  be  too  squeamish  when  a  chem 
ist  brings  him  to  a  mass  of  filth  and  says,  '  See,  the 
great  laws  are  at  work  here  also  ; '  but  it  is  a  fine  art  if  he 
can  deodorise  his  illustration.  However,  I  do  not  fear 
that  any  man  who  has  eyes  in  his  head  will  fail  to  see 
the  genius  in  these  poems.  Those  are  terrible  eyes  to 
walk  along  Broadway.  It  is  all  there,  as  if  in  an 
auctioneer's  catalogue." 

Emerson's  letter  to  Whitman  says  of  the  "  Leaves  of 
Grass,"  —  "  It  meets  the  demand  I  am  always  making 
of  what  seemed  the  sterile  and  stingy  nature,  as  if  too 


THE    DIADEM    OF   DAYS.  361 

much  handiwork  or  too  much  lymph  in  the  tempera 
ment  were  making  our  Western  wits  fat  and  mean.  I 
give  you  joy  of  your  free  and  brave  thought."  This 
was  written  in  July,  1855.  By  Emerson's  suggestion, 
being  about  to  visit  New  York,  I  went  to  see  Walt 
Whitman,  and,  I  think,  sent  a  report  to  Concord. 
Soon  after  Emerson  had  praised  Whitman's  democratic 
poetry,  some  Bohemians  invented  a  story  that  Emerson 
had  been  converted  by  Walt  from  his  spirituality  and 
solitude,  and  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  motley 
was  the  only  wear.  He  must  enter  into  the  holes  and 
dens  and  know  life.  Consequently  finding  himself  one 
day  in  Broadway  —  so  ran  the  fable  —  he  put  on  the 
air  of  a  rough  as  well  as  he  could,  and  presenting  him 
self  at  a  public  bar,  demanded  "  a  glass  of  grog."  It 
was  said  the  barkeeper  folded  his  arms,  looked  his  custo 
mer  in  the  eye  for  a  moment,  and  remarked,  "  I  guess 
lemonade  will  do  for  you.' 

When  his  own  poetry  was  praised  Emerson  interrupt 
ed  with,  "  You  forget ;  we  are  damned  for  poetry."  He 
included  his  own  poetry  under  his  label  for  much  Ameri 
can  work  of  that  kind  —  "  verses."  None  could  come 
up  to  his  unyielding  standard.  Rufus  Griswald  he  held 
an  interesting  person,  as  the  one  man  who  has  discover 
ed  the  existence  of  American  Poetry.  Not  that  he  did 
not  love  and  value  his  contemporaries  and  literary 
friends  ;  he  rejoiced  in  them  ;  but  he  was  remorseless  in 
his  demands  about  poetry.  Poe  was  merely  "  the  man 
who  jingles."  Of  moderns,  Carlyle  most  nearly  ap 
proached  his  poetic  standard.  Of  himself  he  said  once, 
when  forced  to  speak,  "  My  reputation,  such  as  it  is, 
will  be  one  day  cited  to  prove  the  poverty  of  this  time." 


362  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

Emerson's  poetry  was  never  so  much  liked  as  his  prose  ; 
for  the  reason,  as  I  believe,  that  it  presupposed  in  the 
reader  a  much  wider  knowledge  of  science,  philosophy, 
and  mythology. 

In  my  first  summer  with  Emerson  he  gave  me  Arthur 
Clough's  "  Bothie  "  to  read.  He  read  to  me  the  beau 
tiful  lines  in  which  Philip  describes  the  silent  look  of 
Elspie  as  she  passed  him.  The  scholar  suddenly  ter 
minated  his  flirtations  with  the  Highland  maiden  and 
disappeared,  and  writes  back  to  his  vacation-com 
rades  :  — 

u  I  was  walking  along,  some  two  miles  from  the  cottage, 
Full  of  my  dreamings.    A  girl  went  by  in  a  party  with 

others ; 
She  had  a  cloak  on,  was  stepping  on  quickly,  for  rain  was 

beginning. 
But  as  she  passed,  from  her  hood  I  saw  her  eyes  look  at 

me; 
So  quick  a  glance,  so  regardless  I,  that  although  I  had  felt 

it,. 
You  couldn't  properly  say  our  eyes  met.     She  cast  it  and 

left  it." 

In  the  vacation  I  found  a  room  to  lodge  in  at  Con 
cord,  on  Ponkawtassett  Hill.  Emerson  had  offered  to 
lend  me  books,  and  to  give  me  suggestions  as  to  read 
ing  ;  though,  indeed,  what  I  most  desired  was  to  study 
his  own  works,  and  to  be  as  much  as  possible  in  his 
presence.  His  mornings  I  always  held  sacred,  but  it 
was  his  custom  to  take  a  walk  in  the  afternoon,  and  he 
invited  me  to  go  with  him  on  these.  I  was  fearful 
about  this  also,  for  I  knew  he  loved  solitude,  but  he 
promised  that  if  he  desired  to  be  alone  he  would  let  me 
know.  Two  or  three  times  every  week  I  went  to  walk 


THE    DIADEM   OF  DAYS.  363 

with  him.  Once  or  twice  I  thought  I  observed  a  doubt 
in  his  face,  and  proposed  to  take  his  children  on  a 
boating  or  other  excursion,  for  I  had  already  been  ac 
cepted  by  them  as  a  comrade. 

Emerson's  mission  was  to  individual  minds.  Those 
who  were  drawn  to  him,  or  those  in  whom  he  perceived 
a  tendency  of  growth,  found  in  him  a  good  shepherd 
who  carried  them  in  his  arms.  He  did  not  like  to  deal 
with  people  on  general  principles,  but  recognised  the 
particular  talent  and  the  state  of  each  who  sought  him, 
and  was  maternal  in  his  faithfulness  no  less  than  his 
tenderness  to  them.  He  was  the  friend  of  souls.  For 
this  reason  few  of  his  conversations  would  bear  to  be 
reported.  I  was  just  twenty-one  years  of  age  when  I 
first  met  him,  and  often  since,  reflecting  how  crude  I 
was,  his  patience  and  kindness  have  been  remembered 
with  grateful  emotion. 

He  sometimes  talked  to  young  men  of  love  and  mat 
rimony.  He  feared  that  intellectual  men  were  those 
most  apt  to  make  mistakes  in  this  most  vital  of  inter 
ests,  perhaps  through  a  certain  precocity  which  might 
be  felt  as  maturity.  They  were  the  natural  lovers  of 
beauty,  and  all  the  more  should  study  beauty  to  know 
the  farther  beauty.  The  best  security  of  happiness  in 
marriage  is  that  it  should  follow  a  fair  degree  of  culture, 
especially  in  the  taste  for  beauty.  The  age  waits  for  that 
tardy  kind  of  youth  who  will  not  rush  upon  a  career,  but 
can  wait.  "  The  engineer  asked,  '  How  long  shall  we 
wait  for  that  signal  to  move  ? '  The  guard  replied,  '  Wait 
till  the  wheels  rust  off  their  axles.'  Any  delay  is  bet 
ter  than  a  collision  with  the  forces  that  cannot  be  re 
sisted."  With  regard  to  the  various  schemes  of  people 


364  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

for  reforming  the  world,  he  thought  that  the  danger  in 
all  such  things  is  the  tendency  to  pedantry.  The 
Quaker  making  a  great  point  of  his  hat  and  buttons 
was  what  movements  are  likely  to  come  to  when  they 
are  organised.  They  are  alive  to  the  first  man,  to  the 
next  they  are  a  tradition,  to  the  third  a  dogma. 
Against  "spiritualism"  he  was  strong  in  his  admoni 
tions.  If  one  cannot  trust  one's  senses  there  is  nothing 
and  nobody  he  can  trust. 

But  on  most  matters  I  found  him  not  inclined  to  give 
very  positive  opinions,  especially,  I  suppose,  to  one 
then  inclined  to  worship  him ;  his  constant  aim  being 
to  lead  out  thought,  and  to  excite  one  to  take  his  own 
view  of  a  matter.  I  think  if  Emerson  ever  affected 
anything  it  must  have  been  the  interest  he  took  in  the 
nascent  ideas  of  some  of  his  young  admirers.  He 
never  snubbed  any  of  those  who  gathered  around  him, 
but  gave  to  each  the  right  word  to  be  cherished  for 
ever. 

There  could  be  no  question,  however,  about  the 
delight  with  which  he  sometimes  sat  at  the  feet  of  chil 
dren.  I  have  known  him  quote  the  opinions  of  his 
own  in  grave  companies.  "  My  son  says  of  Tom 
Hughes'  characters,  '  These  are  real  boys,'  and  I  have 
great  faith  in  his  opinion."  A  host  of  the  poems  col 
lected  in  "  Parnassus"  were  read  to  his  children  in  the 
stages  of  their  growth,  and  I  doubt  not  some  are  there 
through  domestic  suffrage.  His  talk  with  any  child 
that  approached  him  was  as  gracious  and  dignified  as 
his  conversation  with  elder  persons  ;  he  was  dear  to 
every  child  that  knew  him,  and  these  were  many. 

He  was  fond  of  the  festivities  and  pleasure-parties 


THE    DIADEM    OF    DAYS.  365 

which  form  so  important  a  feature  of  the  Concord  sum 
mer.  "  Whom  shall  we  invite  to  the  berrying?"  cried 
his  daughter,  running  in.  "All  children  from  six 
years  to  sixty,"  was  the  reply.  Edith  looked  steadily 
for  a  moment,  then  ran  off  to  act  in  the  spirit  rather 
than  the  letter  of  the  answer.  On  these  occasions 
Emerson  had  a  way  of  presently  turning  up  at  some 
point  of  our  march,  and  his  grave  conversation  with 
one  or  two  of  the  elders  was  rarely  so  charming  as 
when  thus  casual,  and  alternating  with  remarks  to  the 
children. 

Emerson's  optimism  was  qualified,  if  at  all,  only  by 
a  horror  of  sickness  ;  in  all  other  matters  he  was  so 
free  from  all  impatience  that  it  seemed  to  amuse  him  in 
others.  He  sometimes  appeared  to  require  defenders, 
and  was  not  without  them.  Once  when  Emerson,  in 
his  study,  was  talking  in  his  finest  strain,  his  farm 
hand  broke  his  sentence  in  two  with  report  of  a  broken 
rake.  The  Celtic  head  protruding  in  at  the  door  said, 
"The  hay's  not  half  in,  sir,  and  the  rake  we  got  at 
Mr.  Jones's  is  broke  ;  here  it  is,  sir."  "Bring  it  here, 
Stephen,"  said  Emerson,  and  proceeded  to  examine 
the  implement  profoundly.  It  seemed  to  me  as  he 
held  it  beneath  his  half-inspired,  half-mirthful  eye,  that 
it  was  not  a  rake  concrete  but  the  rake  absolute  and 
eternal.  "  Stephen,"  he  said  at  last,  "  take  it  to  Mr. 
Smith  to  be  mended."  "  But,"  remonstrated  Stephen 
indignantly,  "  we  only  got  it  yesterday,  sir;  hadn't  I 
better  take  it  back  to  Jones."  "  Mr.  Jones  probably 
did  not  know  it  was  bad ;  we'll  take  it  to  Smith, 
Stephen."  When  the  Irishman  had  disappeared,  Em 
erson  intimated  his  fear  that  Stephen  would  compel 


366  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

poor  Jones  to  mend  it  after  all,  not  being  able  to  see 
that,  even  on  his  own  theory,  Jones  was  the  least  com 
petent  for  his  great  purpose  —  getting  in  the  hay.  Of 
course  I  have  not  the  actual  names  right  in  this  anec 
dote,  which,  for  the  rest,  is  interesting  apart  from  the 
gentle  dignity  and  friendly  simplicity  with  which  the 
great  man  conversed  with  his  workman.  In  truth, 
many  a  lesson  did  Emerson  learn  from  such  humble 
and  faithful  workmen.  He  himself  was  farming  invis 
ible  acres  above  their  heads,  but  with  the  same  reality 
and  necessary  method  as  any  sower  going  forth  to  sow. 
He  loved  to  talk  with  gardener  or  farmer,  if  occasion 
arose,  and  was  no  doubt  glad  to  have  a  rake  broken 
now  and  then  to  supply  occasion.  Many  of  their 
hints  have  blossomed  on  his  page. 

I  once  visited  with  him  Longworth's  Catawba  wine 
vaults  at  Cincinnati,  the  workmen  in  which  were 
chiefly  Germans.  As  we  were  leaving,  I  mentioned 
what  the  wine-makers  had  told  me,  that  the  bottled 
wine  stirred  at  the  vine-blossoming  season,  and  it  was 
then  casks  and  bottles  were  most  apt  to  burst.  He 
smiled  as  we  passed  on,  and  said,  "  The  idea  is  very 
German."  Seven  years  later  I  read  in  "  May- 
Day"— 

"  When  trellised  grapes  their  flowers  unmask, 
And  the  new-born  tendrils  twine, 
The  old  wine  darkling  in  the  cask 
Feels  the  bloom  on  the  living  vine, 
And  bursts  the  hoops  at  hint  of  spring : 
And  so,  perchance,  in  Adam's  race, 
Cf  Eden's  bower  some  dreamlike  trace 
Survived  the  Flight,  and  swam  the  Flood, 
And  wakes  the  wish  m  youngest  blood 


THE    DIADEM   OF    DAYS.  367 

To  tread  the  forfeit  Paradise, 

And  feed  once  more  the  exile's  eyes ; 

And  ever  when  the  happy  child 

In  May  beholds  the  blooming  wild, 

And  hears  in  heaven  the  bluebird  sing, 

'  Onward,'  he  cries,  '  your  baskets  bring  — 

In  the  next  field  is  air  more  mild, 

And  o'er  yon  hazy  crest  is  Eden's  balmier  spring.'  " 

Although  Emerson's  garb  was  not  rustic,  it  was 
plain,  never  smart,  and,  with  his  homely  speech  and 
simple  manners,  he  did  not  find  the  country-folk  shy. 
The  phenomena  of  the  universe  were  going  on  in  and 
around  Concord,  and  Emerson  kept  up  a  good  rela 
tion  with  the  humblest  purveyors  of  fact  and  experi 
ence.  They  wrere  richly  rewarded  when  the  day  came 
for  Emerson  to  lecture  in  the  town-hall,  when  many  a 
farming  villager  saw  his  prosaic  fact  risen  to  a  star 
and  shining  in  its  constellation. 

What  a  day  was  that  when  Emersou's  lecture  came 
on !  Remembering  what  Longfellow  had  told  me 
about  those  sophisticated  Bostonians  whose  faces  were 
as  extinguished  lamps  when  listening  to  Emerson's 
early  lectures,  I  have  remarked  the  contrast  when, 
with  illumined  countenances,  his  villagers  were  gath 
ered  before  him  at  Concord.  They  knew  his  voice  and 
followed  him.  All  the  sermons  in  the  village  churches 
for  a  year  were  not  so  well  remembered  as  some  of  his 
sentences.  It  has  seemed  to  me  that  Emerson  never 
spoke  so  well  elsewhere  as  to  his  Concord  audience. 
When  I  first  heard  him  there,  he  appeared,  as  he  arose, 
to  be  the  very  type  of  the  New  England  farmer,  so 
plain  in  dress  and  so  thoroughly  standing  on  his  own 
feet.  Ere  long  he  was  unsheathed,  and  we  were  in 


368  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

the  hall  of  Pericles.  It  was  then  that  I  first  heard 
Emerson,  and,  while  it  is  the  most  vivid  experience  of 
my  life,  I  find  it  nearly  impossible  to  transcribe  it.  I 
recall  no  gesture,  only  an  occasional  swaying  forward 
of  the  body  by  the  impulse  of  earnestness.  Though 
nearly  every  word  had  been  written,  the  manuscript 
did  not  hold  his  eye,  which  kept  its  magnetic  play 
upon  the  audience.  At  one  time,  indeed,  he  searched 
his  memory  for  a  quotation  from  Plato  which  he  wished 
to  introduce,  his  hand  going  to  his  chin  and  his  face 
turning  aside  from  us  as  if  he  would  find  the  words 
written  on  the  wall.  The  sentence  found  was  well 
worth  the  pause.  As  he  proceeded  it  was  as  if  genial 
sunbeams  dialled  themselves  on  the  mind  in  unfolding 
buds  of  beautiful  reasons  and  the  closing  of  errors. 
Now  and  then  fell  a  softly  consuming  sunstroke  upon 
some  reptilian  baseness  of  the  time  coiled  in  the  gar 
den  that  grew  around  his  thought.  One  was  not  the 
same  man  after  such  an  experience.  There  had  been 
a  fall  and  a  redemption,  vanishings  from  us,  but  no 
blank  misgivings,  rather  a  new  courage  of  hearts 
thenceforth  moving  about  in  a  realisable  new  world. 
Never,  once  more  must  I  say,  were  flowers  more  sym 
bolical  than  those  pinks,  pansies,  and  roses,  shaped 
into  an  open  book  above  the  Sage,  as  he  lay  in  Con 
cord  church,  with  "  Finis  "  on  the  page.  His  weapons 
against  error  and  wrong  were  like  those  roses,  in 
Goethe's  Faust,  with  which  the  angels  drove  away  the 
demons,  and  his  sceptre  was  made  known  by  blossom 
ing  in  his  hand. 

Emerson's  humour    as  read   has  lost  some  of    the 
flavour  it  possessed  when  spoken.      Indeed,  I   have 


THE    DIADEM    OF    DAYS.  369 

noted  here  and  there  the  omission  from  a  printed  essay 
of  some  sally  which  elicited  when  it  was  spoken  much 
mirth,  and  think  he  was  inclined  to  suspect  any  pas 
sage  which  had  excited  laughter.  There  was  omitted 
from  his  lecture  on  u  Superlatives,"  when  recently 
printed  in  " '  The  Century, "  a  remark  about  oaths.  The 
oath,  he  said,  could  only  be  used  by  a  thinking  man  in 
some  great  moral  emergency  ;  in  such  rare  case  it 
might  be  the  verdict  of  the  universe  ;  but,  he  added 
in  a  low  tone,  as  if  thinking  to  himself  as  he  turned 
his  page  —  "  but  sham  damns  disgust."  I  remember, 
too,  how  quietly  a  little  drama  was  mounted  on  his 
face  when  he  described  a  pedant  pedagogue  question 
ing  a  little  maid  at  the  school-examination  about 
Odoacer  and  Alaric.  Sylvina  can't  remember,  but 
suggests  that  Odoacer  was  defeated  ;  and  the  professor 
tartly  replies,  "  No,  he  defeated  the  Romans."  But  it 
is  of  no  importance  at  all  about  Odoacer,  and  a  great 
deal  of  importance  about  Sylvina;  and  if  she  says  he 
was  defeated,  why,  he  had  better,  a  great  deal,  have 
been  defeated  than  give  her  a  moment's  annoy. 
Odoacer,  if  there  had  been  a  particle  of  the  gentleman 
in  him,  would  rather  have  been  defeated  a  thousand 
times,  than  that  Sylvina' s  feelings  should  be  hurt. 

These  humourous  passages  came  from  Emerson  gent 
ly,  little  wayside  surprises,  and  without  any  air  of  in 
tention  to  excite  laughter.  One  of  his  wittiest  lectures, 
never  published,  was  that  on  the  French  ;  it  is  full  of 
racy  anecdotes  derived  from  his  sojourn  in  Paris  during 
the  revolution  of  1848.  In  it  he  contrasted  French 
love  of  display  with  English  love  of  reality.  "A 
Frenchman  invented  the  dickey  ;  an  Englishman  added 


370  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 

the  shirt."  He  delivered  this  lecture  to  a  large 
audience  in  Philadelphia  where  an  incident  followed  a 
story  he  told.  "A  Frenchman  and  an  Englishman 
fought  a  duel  in  the  dark  ;  they  were  to  be  let  out  of 
the  room  after  two  pistol  reports  had  been  heard.  The 
Englishman,  to  avoid  wounding  his  antagonist,  crept 
round  to  the  fireplace  ;  he  fired  up  the  chimney  and 
brought  down  the  Frenchman."  After  the  mirth  that 
ensued  was  over,  Emerson  passed  on  to  grave  discourse 
with  the  words,  "  The  French  will  have  things  theatri 
cal  ;  God  will  have  things  real."  But  some  individual 
tardily  caught  the  joke  about  the  duel,  and  his  solitary 
explosion  set  the  house  in  a  roar  that  made  the  lecturer 
pause. 

Emerson's  conversation  on  religious  topics  was  al 
ways  occasional,  and  it  was  strictly  adapted  to  the  per 
sonal  conditions.  He  taught  those  who  would  be 
teachers  that  truth  could  never  be  upheld  by  any  word 
that  would  make  it  repulsive.  We  should  remember 
that  all  liberal  people  were  once  orthodox,  and  that  the 
tenacity  of  orthodoxy  was  a  good  sinew  for  the  farther 
work.  "  Every  leading  man  among  the  Unitarians 
came  from  among  the  orthodox."  These  born  Unita 
rians  he  thought  lacked  momentum.  I  never  knew  him 
dissuade  any  one  from  entering  the  pulpit  which  he  had 
abandoned  ;  he  left  us  to  adjust  ourselves  to  practical 
exigencies  as  we  could,  only  always  reminding  his 
young  friends  that  there  was  a  goal  to  be  reached,  and 
expecting  the  most  of  them."  "  Well,  yes,"  he  wrote  to 
one  just  ordained,  "  go  bravely  onward,  and  we  seniors 
shall  wait,  with  a  hope  that  may  become  homage,  the 


THE    DIADEM    OF   DAYS.  371 

experiences  of  faithful  years,  and  the  fulfilment  of  gen 
erous  promises." 

One  evening,  in  a  small  company,  I  had  the  misfor 
tune  to  get  into  a  controversial  conversation  with  some 
ladies  who  were  evidently  pained  by  some  of  my  opin 
ions,  or  the  crude  expression  of  them.  Emerson  sat 
in  silence,  but  when  we  were  going  home  said,  "I 
thought  at  one  time  I  would  put  in  an  oar,  but  con 
cluded  it  were  better  not.  You  were  quite  right  in  your 
criticismSf^but,  after  all,  one  need  not  remind  a  child 
enjoying  a  play  that  the  scene  is  all  pasteboard,  all  those 
jewels  are  paste."  "But,"  I  pleaded,  "it  did  not 
occur  to  me  they  were  children."  "  Well,  that  is  a 
fair  reply.  People  ought  not  to  remain  children." 

On  a  berrying  party,  just  before  my  graduation,  Em 
erson  spoke  to  me  about  our  studies  in  Divinity  Col 
lege.  I  enumerated  them,  and  he  said,  "  I  cannot  feel 
interested  in  Christianity.  The  thoughts  and  words  of 
a  great  man  becoming  at  last  the  inheritance  of  don 
keys,  they  make  them  into  a  system  suitable  to  them 
selves  and  into  institutions  ;  for  these  they  will  lie,  and 
will  hate  and  malign  others  who  have  different  thoughts  ; 
and  they  do  not  see  that  their  arguments  are  refuted 
by  their  lack  of  the  m'nd  and  character  which  alone 
might  prove  their  case." 

I  can  only  give  the  substance  of  this  pregnant 
thought,  with  exception  of  the  first  sentence,  that  start 
led  me,  and  I  have  not  forgotten  the  words.  "  It 
would  seem,"  he  said  again,  "that  there  should  be  an 
end  sometime  to  these  controversies  and  this  casuistry. 
Why  should  one  ask  me  an  opinion  about  miracles  ?  I 
am  familiar  with  similar  narratives  in  other  books  matt 


372  EMERSON   AT    HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

the  Bible,  and  have  no  difficulty  in  dealing  with  them 
there.  Look  into  the  diamond  e}Tes  of  that  child,  and 
see  her  hair  of  sunshine.  What  is  a  Jewish  or  Chris 
tian  miracle  beside  it  ? " 

What  we  used  to  call  the  problem  of  evil  was  no 
problem  to  Emerson.  He  told  me  it  had  been  made 
clear  to  him  when  he  first  came  to  a  perception  of  the 
law  of  development  in  nature —  "  from  the  sponge  up 
to  Hercules,"  to  remember  his  phrase  of  1835.  The 
fact  lay  in  that  phrase,  "arrested  development." 
There  is  no  evil  in  nature,  in  the  theologic  sense  of 
evil ;  each  organisation  is  fit  for  its  own  purpose,  but 
when  it  is  not  fit  for  mine  I  call  it  evil.  Cat  is  evil  to 
mouse.  If  the  obstructed  is  of  higher  organisation 
than  the  obstructor,  he  erects  his  standard  of  good,  and 
whatever  is  contrary  to  it  he  pronounces  bad.  Devel 
opment  is  shewn  in  the  degree  of  approach  to  that ;  all 
that  falls  short  of  the  standard  is  arrest.  Immorality 
means  people  living  out  their  several  shortcomings,  or 
comings-short  of  the  social  standard.  Prisons  are 
asylums  for  arrested  developments.  This  phenomenon 
of  arrest  in  nature  was  popularly  called  the  Devil. 
But  since  this  Devil  was  adopted  by  theology  he  has 
become  a  name  for  some  good  things,  as  one  calls  him 
u  the  great  Second  Best."  This  is  the  substance  of 
what  Emerson  said. 

I  close  these  anecdotes  of  days  passed  with  Emerson 
with  recollections  of  a  Sunday  morning  when  he  deliv 
ered  a  discourse  to  five  thousand  people  in  Boston 
Music  Hall,  from  the  desk  then  recently  made  vacant 
by  Theodore  Parker's  death.  No  doubt  when  this  dis 
course  is  published  it  will  shew  discrepancies  with  my 


THE    DIADEM    OF    DAYS.  373 

notes,  but  I  give  my  impressions  as  written  shortly 
after  listening  to  it.  He  began  by  calling  attention  to 
the  tendency  to  simplification.  The  inventor  knows 
that  a  machine  is  new  and  improvable  when  it  has  a 
great  many  parts.  The  chemists  find  the  infinite  vari 
ety  of  things  contained  in  a  few  elements,  and  physi 
cists  promise  that  this  number  shall  be  reduced. 
Faraday  declares  his  belief  that  all  things  will  in  the 
end  be  reduced  to  one  element  with  two  polarities. 
Religious  progress  has  similarly  been  in  the  direction 
of  simplification.  Every  great  religion  has  in  its  ulti 
mate  development  told  its  whole  secret,  concentrated 
its  force,  in  some  simple  maxims.  In  our  youth  we 
talk  of  the  various  virtues,  the  many  dangers  and 
trials  of  life  ;  as  we  get  older  we  find  ourselves  return 
ing  to  the  proverbs  of  the  nursery. 

"  A  few  strong  instincts  and  a  few  plain  rules, 
Among  the  herdsmen  of  the  Alps,  have  wrought 
More  for  mankind  at  this  unhappy  day 
Than  all  the  pride  of  intellect  and  thought." 

In  religion  one  old  book  serves  many  lands,  ages, 
and  varieties  of  character ;  nay,  one  or  two  golden 
rules  out  of  the  book  are  enough.  The  many  teachers 
and  Scriptures  are  at  last  but  various  routes  by  which 
we  always  come  to  the  simple  law  of  obedience  to  the 
light  in  the  soul.  "  Seek  nothing  outside  of  thyself," 
says  one;  "Believe  nothing  against  thy  own  spirit," 
echoes  another  part  of  the  world.  Jesus  said,  "Be 
lowly  ;  hunger  and  thirst  after  justice  ;  of  your  own 
minds  judge  what  is  right."  Swedenborg  teaches  that 


374  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

heaven  and  hell  are  the  loves  of  the  soul.  George 
Fox  removes  the  bushel  from  the  light  within.  The 
substance  of  all  morals  is  that  a  man  should  adhere  to 
the  path  which  the  inner  light  has  marked  before  him. 
The  great  waste  in  the  world  comes  of  the  misapplica 
tion  of  energy.  The  tragedies  of  the  soul  are  strung 
on  those  threads  not  spun  out  of  our  own  hearts.  One 
records  of  Michael  Angelo  that  he  found  him  working 
on  his  statue  with  a  lamp  stuck  in  his  cap,  and  it  might 
almost  symbolise  the  holier  light  of  patient  devotion  to 
his  art.  No  matter  what  your  work  is,  let  it  be  yours  ; 
no  matter  if  you  are  tinker  or  preacher,  blacksmith  or 
President,  let  what  you  are  doing  be  organic,  let  it  be 
in  your  bones,  and  you  open  the  door  by  which  the 
affluence  of  heaven  and  earth  shall  stream  into  you. 
You  shall  have  the  hidden  joy,  and  shall  carry  suc 
cess  with  you.  Look  to  yourself  rather  than  to  mate 
rials  :  nothing  is  unmanageable  to  a  good  hand ;  no 
place  slippery  to  a  good  foot ;  all  things  are  clear  to  a 
good  head.  The  sin  of  dogmatism,  of  creeds  and  cate 
chisms,  is  that  they  destroy  mental  character.  Intel 
lect  without  character  is  mere  fidgetiness.  The  youth 
says  that  he  believes,  when  he  is  only  browbeaten  ;  he 
says  he  thinks  so  and  so,  when  that  so  and  so  are  the 
denial  of  any  right  to  think.  Simplicity  and  self-trust 
are  thus  lost,  and  with  them  the  sentiment  of  obligation 
to  a  principle  of  life  and  honour.  In  the  legends  of  the 
Round  Table  it  is  told  that  a  witch  wishing  to  make 
her  child  supremely  wise,  prepared  certain  herbs  and 
put  them  in  a  pot  to  boil,  intending  to  bathe  the  child's 
eyes  with  the  decoction.  She  set  a  shepherd  boy  to 
stir  the  pot  whilst  she  went  away.  Whilst  he  stirred 


THE    DIADEM    OF   DAYS.  375 

it  a  raven  dropped  a  twig  into  the  pot,  which  spattered 
three  drops  of  the  liquid  into  the  shepherd's  eyes. 
Immediately  all  the  future  became  as  if  passing  before 
his  eyes  ;  and  seeing  that  when  the  witch  returned  she 
meant  to  kill  him,  he  left  the  pot  and  fled  to  the  woods. 
Now  if  three  drops  of  that  all-revealing  decoction 
should  suddenly  get  into  the  eyes  of  every  human  being 
crowding  along  Washington  street  some  day,  how 
many  of  them  would  still  go  on  with  the  affair  they  are 
pursuing  on  the  street  ?  Probably  they  would  nearly 
all  come  to  a  dead  stand !  But  there  would,  let  us 
hope,  be  here  and  there  a  happy  child  of  the  Most 
High,  who  had  taken  hold  of  her  or  his  life's  thread  by 
sacred  appointment.  These  would  move  on  without 
even  a  pause  :  the  unveiled  future  would  shew  the 
futility  of  many  schemes,  the  idleness  of  many  labours  ; 
but  every  genuine  aim  would  only  be  exalted,  and 
shewn  in  eternal  and  necessary  relations.  Finally, 
Humility  was,  the  speaker  declared,  the  one  element 
to  which  all  virtues  are  reducible.  "It  was  revealed 
unto  me,"  said  the  old  Quaker,  "  that  what  other  men 
trample  on  must  be  thy  food."  It  is  the  spirit  that 
accepts  our  trust,  and  is  thus  the  creator  of  character 
and  the  guide  to  power.  Then,  lowering  his  voice,  as 
one  might  speak  on  his  knees,  he  recited  the  sublime 
paradoxes  of  Dante's  apostrophe  to  the  Virgin  :  —  V 


u  O  Virgin  Mother,  daughter  of  thy  son, 
Created  beings  all  in  lowliness 
Surpassing,  as  in  height  thou  art 
Above  them  all." 


376  EMERSON    AT   HOME    AXD   ABROAD. 

In  conclusion,  Emerson  related  the  story  from  Man- 
zoni's  "  I  Promessi  Sposi"  of  the  nobleman  who  slew 
another  in  a  brawl,  in  penitence  for  which  he  became 
a  friar.  When  the  slain  man's  brother  demanded  this 
Fra  Cristoforo's  humiliation  before  the  proud  family  — 
not  that  he  cared  much  for  his  brother,  a  worthless 
fellow,  but  to  make  a  page  in  the  family  history  —  the 
friar  was  eager  so  to  atone  for  his  deed.  There  was 
no  attempt  at  effect  in  Emerson's  descriptions  —  no 
gestures  —  yet  the  subtlest  actor  could  not  more  have 
moved  the  vast  audience.  On  his  face  was  seen  that 
face  of  the  friar  in  which  every  eye  read  perfect  sin 
cerity  and  courage.  We  saw  the  friar,  frank  and 
fearless,  kneeling  to  confess  his  wrong,  and,  pleading 
in  justification,  ask  pardon  of  those  lie  had  deprived 
of  a  brother.  We  saw  his  victory  through  humiliation, 
the  servants  kissing  the  hem  of  his  coarse  garment, 
the  proud  lord  hastening  to  raise  him,  to  disown  angei, 
to  offer  him  fine  food  which  he  would  not  taste,  beg 
ging  only  a  little  bread  and  salt  as  a  token  of  forgive 
ness  ;  and  finally,  when  Fra  Cristoforo  had  departed 
through  the  company,  kneeling  for  the  blessing  of  him 
who  had  knelt,  we  saw  the  bewildered  nobleman  say 
ing,  "  That  devil  of  a  monk,  if  he  had  knelt  there 
longer,  I  believe  I  should  have  asked  his  pardon  for 
killing  my  own  brother."  A  smile  beamed  on  the  face 
of  the  speaker,  and  played  on  the  faces  before  him,  at 
these  his  last  words ;  but  by  the  time  he  gathered  up 
Lis  pages  and  sat  down,  his  listeners  were  in  tears. 
For  some  moments  the  assembly  of  five  thousand  sat 
in  a  stillness  that  was  sacred. 


THE    DIADEM   OF   DAYS.  377 

This  man  in  the  beginning  of  that  generation  had 
been  compelled  to  leave  his  pulpit  because  he  could 
not  administer  an  Eastern  sacrament :  now  did  we 
receive  from  him  the  substance  of  that  shadow,  and 
the  kneeling  heart  whispered  —  Take,  eat:  it  is  his 
body  and  his  blood  he  gives  thee. 


378  EMERSON   AT   HOME   AND   ABROAD. 


XXX. 

LETFIE. 

LIFE  is  unnecessarily  long,"  was  a  sentence  that 
once  startled  an  audience  listening  to  Emerson. 
It  might  be  true  enough  of  those  he  described  as  float 
ing  balloon-like  over  lands  and  seas,  and  settling 
down  the  same  bubbles  of  breath  that  started ;  but 
for  this  man  visibly  and  audibly  growing,  it  was  ap 
palling  to  contemplate  decay  and  death.  Long  years 
afterwards  I  read  in  a  letter  of  his  an  expression  of 
apprehension  that  he  might  live  too  long,  and  a  sug 
gestion  that  even  suicide  might  be  better  than  to  mar 
or  undo  one's  work.  This  was  near  the  close  of  the 
civil  war  in  America,  which,  as  I  have  said,  was  a 
strain  upon  Emerson's  nerves  from  which,  probably, 
they  never  completely  recovered.  At  any  rate,  those 
nearest  him  had  observed  indications  of  physical  de 
cline  before  the  burning  of  his  house  in  1872.  He 
said  that,  on  the  morning  after  this  fire,  he  felt  some 
thing  snap  in  his  brain.  It  is  probable  Emerson  might 
not  have  survived  the  illness  that  followed  this  severe 
shock,  had  it  not  been  for  the  love  and  devotion  which 
everywhere  rose  around  him.  It  was  the  least  part 
of  this  manifestation  that  it  insisted,  despite  his  reluc 
tance,  on  rebuilding  his  house  for  him ;  the  almost 


LETHE.  379 

passionate  love,  not  only  of  his  Concordians,  but  of 
many  whose  names  he  had  never  heard,  breathed  new 
life  into  him.  Some  day,  perhaps,  the  correspondence 
which  passed  on  this  subject  may  be  made  public,  and 
it  will  reveal  a  touching  incident  in  the  life  of  this 
great  heart,  so  loving  and  beloved. 

When  he  came  to  England  after  the  fire,  with  his 
daughter  Ellen,  his  head  was  quite  clear  of  hair,  like 
that  of  an  infant.  When  he  returned  from  a  visit  to 
Egypt  his  head  was  covered  with  a  snowy  downy  hair 
half  an  inch  long.  He  was  in  fair  physical  condition, 
and  cheerful,  but  already  his  memory  did  him  but  fitful 
service.  Carlyle  contended  that  Emerson's  memory 
was  as  good  as  ever,  only  "he  paid  less  attention  to 
the  foolish  things  said  to  him ;  they  came  in  at  one 
ear  and  went  out  at  the  other."  But  Emerson  knew 
well  enough  that  this  was  not  the  fact.  Yet  he  was 
good-humoured  about  it,  and  when  a  friend  asked 
after  his  health  replied,  "  Quite  well ;  I  have  lost  my 
mental  faculties,  but  am  perfectly  well." 

In  1875,  when  I  stayed  at  his  house  in  Concord  for 
a  little  time,  it  was  sad  enough  to  find  him  sitting  as  a 
listener  before  those  who  used  to  sit  at  his  feet  in 
silence.  But  when  alone  with  him  he  conversed  in  the 
old  way,  and  his  faults  of  memory  seemed  at  times  to 
disappear.  There  was  something  striking  in  the  kind 
of  forgetfulness  by  which  he  suffered.  He  remem 
bered  the  realities  and  uses  of  things  when  he  could 
not  recall  their  names.  He  would  describe  what  he 
wanted  or  thought  of;  when  he  could  not  recall 
"chair"  he  could  speak  of  that  which  supports  the 
human  frame,  and  "  the  implement  that  cultivates  the 


380  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND    ABROAD. 

soil"  must  do  for  plough.  Could  it  be  that  idealism 
had  such  deep  root  in  this  mind  that  even  disease,  veil 
ing  the  "  nominal"  world,  was  held  at  bay  when  assail 
ing  mental  concepts  ? 

Among  the  matters  we  discussed  at  that  time  was 
the  report  of  an  interview  with  him,  published  in  an 
American  paper,  in  which  he  had  criticised  Swinburne 
severely.  He  said  he  could  not  remember  what  he 
had  said  at  the  interview,  but  "  its  publication  was 
one  of  the  damnable  things." 

He  evinced  some  emotion  when  I  said  the  house 
and  rooms  were  not  distinguishable  from  what  they 
had  been  before  the  fire.  The  loving  art  with  which 
his  friends  and  neighbours  had  made  this  exact  resto 
ration,  and  the  welcome  they  had  given  him  on  his  last 
return  from  England  —  the  music,  the  hundreds  of  chil 
dren  singing  "  Sweet  Home,"  the  floral  decorations, 
—  had  overwhelmed  him  at  the  time,  but  they  were 
now  a  happy  memory  that  could  not  be  dimmed. 

In  1880,  when  I  was  last  at  Concord,  the  trouble  had 
made  heavy  strides.  The  intensity  of  his  silent  atten 
tion  to  every  word  that  was  said  was  painful,  suggesting 
a  concentration  of  his  powers  to  break  through  the  in 
visible  walls  closing  around  him.  Yet  his  face  was 
serene  ;  he  was  even  cheerful,  and  joined  in  our  laugh 
ter  at  some  letters  his  eldest  daughter  had  preserved, 
from  young  girls,  trying  to  coax  autograph  letters,  and 
in  one  case  asking  for  what  price  he  would  write  a  val 
edictory  address  she  had  to  deliver  at  college  !  He  was 
still  able  to  joke  about  his  "  naughty  memory  ;  "  and 
no  complaint  came  from  him  when  he  once  rallied  him 
self  on  living  too  long.  Emerson,  appeared  to  me 


LETHE.  381 

strangely  beautiful  at  this  time,  and  the  sweetness  of 
his  voice,  when  he  spoke  of  the  love  and  providence  at 
his  side,  is  quite  indescribable. 

The  answer  of  the  Methodist,  Father  Taylor,  when 
told  Emerson  had  not  the  faith  that  was  saving  —  that 
if  he  went  to  hell,  he  would  change  the  climate  and 
emigration  would  set  that  way  —  found  one  day  a  curious 
commentary.  A  number  of  Methodist  ministers  began 
this  emigration  by  going  to  Concord  together  to  pay 
their  respects  to  Emerson.  One  of  them  described  the 
call  to  a  friend  of  mine  as  delightful.  "  Emerson,"  he 
said,  "  looked  a  little  doubtful  at  first  —  as  though  he 
thought,  perhaps,  we  had  come  to  put  him  through  the 
catechism — but  became  re-assured,  affable,  and  charm 
ing,  as  it  dawned  on  him  that  it  was  in  compliment  to 
his  fame  as  a  wise  man  and  a  great  scholar."  On  his 
death,  the  Methodist  paper,  "  Zion's  Herald,"  said: 
"  Certainly  a  beautiful  life,  that  for  late  years  has  been 
like  an  ancient  psalm,  full  of  solemn  melody,  has  ceased 
to  be  read  among  men." 

It  is  to  be  feared  he  was  not  always  so  happy  in  his 
pious  visitors.  One,  at  any  rate,  visited  him  with  the 
hope  of  getting  some  kind  of  sanction  for  his  own 
little  theology.  But  Emerson  rose  to  this  occasion  ; 
and  when  asked  his  religious  views,  walked  to  the  shelf 
of  his  works  and  said,  "There  are  my  opinions;  I 
have  nothing  to  take  from  them." 

It  is  in  one  sense  melancholy  to  know  that  Emerson's 
son  was  under  the  necessity  of  contradicting  insinua 
tions  that  his  father  had  receded  from  his  religious 
views  ;  while  at  the  same  time  one  cannot  wonder  that 
superstition  should  feel  uneasy  under  its  conscious  in- 


382  EMERSON   AT   HOME    AND   ABROAD. 

ability  to  produce  or  to  satisfy  the  finest  head  and 
grandest  heart  in  America.  It  may  be  that  yet  such 
claims  will  be  made  ;  but,  if  true,  as  they  certainly  are 
not,  they  would  only  be  of  pathological  interest,  and 
shew  that  the  real  Emerson  had  departed  this  life 
sooner  than  had  been  supposed. 

Apart  from  such  liabilities  and  annoyances  as  this, 
it  was  not  without  compensation  that  Emerson's  mem 
ory  failed.  His  sensitive  heart  was  thereby  saved  many 
a  pang.  This  occurred  to  me  when  I  was  walking 
with  him  and  his  wife  and  son  to  the  house  of  her 
brother,  Dr.  Charles  Jackson,  then  recently  deceased. 
The  sorrow  had  swiftly  passed  by  him. 

He  was  never  more  sweet  and  gracious,  and  never 
forgot  his  way  of  saying  the  kindliest  word.  Not  long 
before  he  was  seized  with  the  fatal  illness,  he  returned 
from  a  walk  and  found  two  young  ladies  of  the  village 
in  his  study.  "It  is  too  bad  of  us,  Mr.  Emerson," 
said  one,  "to  take  possession  of  your  study."  "It 
will  be  all  the  brighter  that  you  have  thought  it  worth 
coming  to,"  was  the  prompt  reply. 

At  the  funeral  of  Longfellow,  Emerson  twice  walked 
up  to  the  coffin,  and  gazed  intently  upon  the  face  of 
his  dead  friend.  Then  he  turned  to  a  friend  and  said, 
"  That  gentleman  was  a  sweet,  beautiful  soul,  but  I 
have  entirely  forgotten  his  name." 

Thus  did  he  pass  deeper  into  his  Lethe,  and  forgot 
griefs  that  would  have  wrung  his  heart,  unto  the  day 
when  the  pain  came  upon  his  body.  But  here,  too,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  brother's  art  had  provided  the  anes 
thetic  draught,  of  which  the  mythical  Lethe  seems  a 
dream.  The  prophet  of  love  and  science  by  their 


LETHE.  383 

hands  passed  painlessly  into  the  elements  which  hence 
forth  will  be  gentler  because  he  has  lived. 

Here,  then,  ends  the  long  pilgrimage  from  Plymouth 
to  Concord,  from  the  Rock  to  the  Soul  in  which  all  its 
strength  was  humanised.  The  physician  brought  his 
draught  of  Lethe  to  the  bed  of  pain  against  all  the  pro 
tests  of  dogmas  which  translated  blind  elements  and 
cherished  the  curse  of  nature.  Dr.  Holmes  found  it 
necessary  to  demand  of  the  medical  students  at  Har 
vard  University  that  they  should  not  permit  the  scrip 
tures  of  ancient  Jahve-worshippers  to  restrain  them 
from  soothing  human  agonies  and  mitigating  maternal 
pangs  !  When  the  wife,  her  tender  care  of  forty-seven 
years  now  ending,  saw  her  great  husband  soothed  in 
his  last  hours  by  her  brother's  anaesthetic,  administered 
by  her  son,  her  solace  was  from  that  maternal  spirit 
which  everywhere  presses  gently  back  inorganic  power 
with  charms  yielded  by  itself  to  love  and  wisdom. 
Never  was  the  soothing  agent  more  fitly  used  than  on 
him  who  had  done  more  than  any  other  to  soften  for 
his  age  the  pangs  of  its  new  birth.  / 


THE   END. 


952k 


21  9  M 


.THEAJNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


